The cancer and palliative care placement

This chapter explains the varied roles that individuals, teams and departments have in providing services to patients and family members within the cancer and palliative care specialty. While you are on your practice placement, you will be working with some of these individuals and teams across a wide range of departments. Others may not be available at your local trust.

Although your own school of nursing/university and healthcare trust may organise your placements in different ways, many use the ‘hub and spoke’ model. Whether they do or not, this is a great way of identifying clinical learning opportunities. In addition to learning experiences in the hub placement, there are several spoke placements available as part of the learning experience. There are also potential opportunities to go on insight visits to work with multiprofessional team members, for example the community Macmillan nurse or escorting a patient for treatment in a different department.

These experiences are important to help you understand the role of each professional in the care environment and management of the patient and their family. Being familiar with the range of roles available and how they work in your clinical area can help in your assessment and care planning for a patient.

The ‘hub and spoke’ model in Figure 7.1 is supported by the NMC. It gives you the opportunity to be allocated to one clinical area for a period of time while also having the opportunity to be allocated to a spoke area and short insight visits.

Fig 7.1 Hub and spoke placement model

In this model, any area could be either a hub or a spoke placement. Some teams and departments may be accessed by an insight visit. Your placement will most likely be composed of one hub with several planned spoke opportunities and insight visits. Discussing the opportunities available with your mentor is important at the start of the placement.

The length of the placement may depend on the year of study as well as local arrangements between the university and clinical areas. Box 7.1 outlines a theoretical example of what a first year nursing student’s 18-week (‘year-long’) placement might look like. This sample placement demonstrates a wide range of learning opportunities that can stem from a core hub placement. It is important to remember that a cancer patient can be nursed in any clinical environment. Some placements will be much shorter than this, most ranging between 8 and 12 weeks. This is dependent on the school of nursing and your stage of training.

These placement experiences reflect the patient journey and will give you some insight into how teams can complement each other with the work they do to provide holistic patient care.

How each team/specialty works in the practice placement

The following individuals, teams and departments are potential spoke placements or insight visits within a hub placement. Some might be new to you while you may already have worked with others and understand their role.