The UKONS Board

The members of the UKONS Board are:

Lynn Adams - representing Scotland

Lynn is currently Consultant Cancer Nurse for NHS Grampian and is based in Aberdeen. Lynn has over twenty five years experience in cancer care gained from clinical, and operational and strategic management posts in London, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. In her role as Consultant Cancer Nurse, she provides strategic direction and leadership to nurses in cancer care across NHS Grampian, represents nursing in local, regional and national planning groups for cancer, and plays a key role in the integration of care across acute and community settings. Lynn is an Associate Lecturer at Robert Gordon University where she contributes to the development of curricula and the research agenda. Lynn’s passion for nursing has been sustained because of the significant contribution nurses make to the development and delivery of high quality patient care. Current key interest include, the development of cancer nursing services in community settings, and the development of clinical nurse specialist services and teams.

Sally Campanali - representing Northern Ireland - Lead for newsletter

Sally began her nursing career in Belfast in the 70s, choosing to specialise in Orthopaedics for which N.I. had developed a degree of expertise as an unfortunate product of “The Troubles” On moving to London, Sally was lured into the emerging speciality of Cardiothoracic Surgery, eventually holding a variety of senior nursing positions. This in turn led her onto a career as a nursing consultant in the commissioning of new hospitals or centres. One such was the B.M. Birla Heart Research Centre in India where Sally remained as Matron for one year.

In 1990 Sally was required to return as her family was moving to Italy and there she continued in her role as a consultant for a variety of organisations. However in the early 90’s Sally was asked to commission a Palliative Care Unit and loved the speciality so much that again she stayed on as Matron until another family transfer brought her back to Northern Ireland in 1997. Here, Sally I worked as Clinical Services Manager in the Marie Curie Centre Belfast for 5 years before moving to work in the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre in 2001, where she remains to this day.

Maggie Crowe - President

Maggie is currently working as consultant nurse and lead cancer nurse at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. Maggie has had over 15 years experience in a number of oncology posts. Maggie is currently a member of the National Chemotherapy Advisory Group and has been a member of the National Cancer Nursing Advisory Group. Key interests for Maggie include knowledge and competencies of nurses caring for cancer patients in non-cancer areas. She is currently principal investigator for a multi-centre study investigating the supportive care needs of people following potentially curative cancer treatment.

Natalie Doyle - representing England - Board Lead for UKONS national Supportive Care Forum

Natalie is currently the Nurse Consultant for Cancer Rehabilitation at the Royal Marsden Hospital, where she leads the multi-professional Rehabilitation Outreach Team. Natalie has over 20 years experience of working in a variety of posts within cancer care and general nursing. Her main areas of interest are cancer survivorship and the older person with cancer. Natalie is currently undertaking a professional doctorate in nursing.

Debbie Fenlon - representing England - UKONS Treasurer

Debbie Fenlon is currently working as a senior research fellow in the Cancer, Palliative and End of Life Care Research Group at the University of Southampton. Her area of interest is to research symptoms following treatment for breast cancer in order to help improve understanding of symptoms and their impact on women’s lives and to find ways of helping to manage difficult symptoms. She won a CRUK fellowship to undertake a PhD, which was a randomised, controlled trial of relaxation to reduce hot flushes after breast cancer. Prior to this she worked as a lecturer in cancer care at the Institute of Cancer Research and as a clinical nurse specialist in breast cancer at the Royal Marsden Hospital. She has contributed to a number of text books on cancer nursing and co-authored a book for women with breast cancer.

Ann Fox - representing England

Ann is Nurse Director for the Northern Cancer Network. She has worked in cancer/palliative services for most of her career in a variety of clinical and managerial roles. Ann has been involved in many service developments locally e.g., Out of Hours Palliative Care Services and Nurse Led Chemotherapy Services, (which remain an area of personal interest). Ann is Co-chair of the National Network Nurse Directors forum and represents nursing on the National Chemotherapy Advisory Group. Ann is passionate about providing the best services possible for patients and their families and believes her role at NCN influences the local and national agenda particularly from a nursing and clinical support professionals’ perspective. The focus of Ann’s role is to ensure the patient perspective and experience is considered as central to every service delivery and development.

Elaine Lennan - representing England - Board lead for UKONS national chemotherapy forum

Elaine Lennan has been a cancer nurse for over 20 years. She began her nurse training in Liverpool in 1984 and moved to London to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. From there she went to Australia for a working holiday and stayed for 10 years! It was in Australia that Elaine found oncology and gained extensive experience in medical oncology, haematology, bone marrow transplant and HIV nursing. She studied for an oncology certificate in the NSW College of Nursing and gained a degree in nursing from the University of Sydney in 1994. Her final role in Australia was as a clinical nurse educator in a BMT unit and a senior lecturer in the NSW College of Nursing. On returning to England, Elaine moved to Southampton and began a role as a clinical nurse specialist for IV therapy. Elaine later moved into a managerial role as the senior nurse for the cancer care directorate and finally in 2004 secured a position as Consultant Nurse in Chemotherapy. Elaine continued her academic career and gained a Masters degree from Portsmouth University in 1999 and is currently in her final year as a doctoral student. Her thesis is entitled ‘Non-medical prescribing: Using 4th generation evaluation to engage health service users to implement change’. It has a working title of ‘What are the views of stakeholders about non medical prescribing of chemotherapy?’ Elaine has several publications and has presented at local, national and international level.

Elaine has recently been elected vice chair of the UKONS chemotherapy forum and is involved in the workforce section of the National Chemotherapy Action Group (NCAG). She has just finished being a clinical advisor for the NCEPOD audit into deaths from Systemic Anti Cancer Therapy (SACT).

Catherine Oakley - representing England

Catherine is currently the Chemotherapy Nurse Consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. She has worked in cancer care for over 20 years as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Lead Cancer Nurse and within General Management. She has developed cancer patient involvement and health promotion strategies and her main area of interest is chemotherapy. Catherine has particular knowledge about chemotherapy network services, home support and oral chemotherapy which was the topic of her MSc research. Catherine and her colleague, Jo Johnson, were awarded the 2008 Europeon Oncology Nursing Society prize for excellence in patient education materials for developing a generic patient oral chemotherapy diary. Catherine has been an investigator and provided advice on national projects including a review of cancer in-patient admissions, the recent National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death within 30 days of systemic anti-cancer therapy and the Rapid Response Report - Risks of incorrect dosing of oral anti-cancer medicines, 2008.

Michele Pengelly - representing Wales - Lead for website

Michele is a specialist nurse for supportive care in the Velindre Cancer Centre in South Wales and has worked in clinical oncology both in the public and voluntary sectors for almost 20 years. Michele’s current role is to provide specialist information and supportive care for cancer patients and their families admitted to the acute oncology setting and she also has a considerable remit for providing education, support and training for staff. Her role provides an excellent example of the collaborative working partnership between the charity Cancer Care Cymru and Velindre NHS Trust, who jointly fund the role.

Central to Michele’s nursing philosophy is a passionate and deep belief that patients should not be cared for in isolation but within the context of their family unit and therefore any care must be both patient and family focused. She currently leads many patient centred initiatives. Michele believes that membership of UKONS will provide cancer nurses at all stages of their careers with an excellent forum to positively influence and contribute to today’s political healthcare agenda.

Beryl Roberts - representing Wales

Beryl qualified as a Registered General Nurse in Wrexham, 1988, then worked as a Staff Nurse on a Radiotherapy Ward in Clatterbridge Centre of Oncology. Registered Mental Nurse training was completed in 1990. She worked in Oncology and Haematology Day Units at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor for 10 years and North Wales Cancer Treatment Centre for 4 years. For the last two years she has been Lead Oncology Nurse for the North East Wales NHS Trust and North Wales Cancer Network. She is married to Dafydd with two sons, Hari and Huw, 6 and 5 years old respectively, and they live on an Organic Farm in Conwy. Her hobbies include cycling and running.

Cheryl Vidall - President-elect

Cheryl has been a trained nurse for over 20 years, with expertise in Colorectal Cancer. She was a CNS in Exeter for 5 years, before working for Healthcare at Home. Her particular interest has been in functional issues following treatment for recal cancers, most specifically sexual function. She has spoken nationally and internationally on this subject. She has also chaired the South West colorectal nurses forum, been nursing governor on the foundation trust board and set up user groups in the south west. She worked for the Peninsula Cancer Network on a secondment for 6 months. Cheryl is delighted to be on the board of UKONS, to represent nurses working in the Independent sector.

Annie Young - past President

Annie works as nurse director, 3 Counties Cancer Network - Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and South Worcestershire, steering the direction of cancer and supportive and palliative care services in this very striking part of the country. She started working life as a biochemist but her varied nursing career included general medicine and ITU before specialising in oncology, firstly as chemotherapy nurse and ultimately in research, both quantitative and qualitative. Annie was research nurse manager in the Institute for Cancer Studies at Birmingham University where she gained an MRC Clinical Fellowship and was instrumental in starting up a home chemotherapy and a gene therapy programme. Annie retains her main research interests - informed consent, nurse-driven clinical trials and thrombosis in malignancy - during the week but is often seen tandeming round Herefordshire at weekends.