Nurse managers, practice and community nurses, will require a range of new skills to help deliver a major government strategy to improve the care of cancer patients and survivors the Nursing Times reports.

The National Cancer Survivorship Initiative, published on the 19th January by the Department of Health, states that follow up arrangements are not meeting the needs of cancer survivors in England and that primary care needs to play a larger role in delivering care to patients living with the disease.

The strategy announces five changes the NHS needs to make in its care approach to cancer survivors. This includes a move towards a more personalised and supportive system for self management.

These additions will need to be adopted in a top down scheme, meaning nurse manager jobs and primary care jobs will face big changes. Such shifts will require those in the care professions to develop and build on existing skills and generate new ones. These new skills may include holistic needs assessment skills, telehealth skills and the expertise to support patients in managing their own care.

Ann Keen, Health Minister, stated: ''Key primary care staff such as practice nurses, district nurses and specialist nurses will be required to develop their skills so that they can meet the holistic needs of people with cancer''.

The Foundation of Nursing Studies is more wary of these changes and is worried that more training may make nurses feel overburdened, commenting that ''taking on a new task does not always mean learning a new skill. This has to be made clearer to nurses so they don't feel under pressure... It has been noted that much training and development undertaken by nurses is being done in their own time and being paid for out of their own pocket. At a time when the NHS is being asked to make savings, the question of where the funding will come from has to be addressed''.