CEO message: Cancer care doesn't happen in isolation. Neither should your learning.
To our members, partners and the wider nursing community,
As I'm sure many of you have already seen, we recently launched the Cancer Nursing Learning Hub on Florence. I'd like to share why we built it the way we did, and what it means for you.
When CNSA set out to create a national Cancer Nursing Education Portal, funded through the Australian Government's Cancer Patient Support Program, the goal was simple: make it easier for nurses to find trusted, cancer-specific education suited to their practice, career stage and role.
Since early 2025, we've worked closely with an expert working group of cancer nurse educators and clinicians, held focus groups with education providers, and audited the cancer nursing education already available across the country.
Rather than build a new app from scratch, we made the deliberate choice to partner with the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA). APNA shares our deep commitment to high-quality, accessible nursing education, and had already created Florence, an intuitive learning platform made for nurses. Working together has allowed us to build on that strong foundation and create a dedicated home for cancer nursing education, and we're proud of what this partnership has made possible.
It's also a better fit for how cancer care really works. People affected by cancer have needs that go well beyond their diagnosis, and cancer nurses care for the whole person.
So much of cancer care also happens outside specialist cancer services. The Australian Cancer Plan recognises the important role primary care plays across the cancer continuum, from prevention, screening and diagnosis through to supportive and end-of-life care, and increasingly in treatment and follow-up through shared care models. It also calls for primary and community care nurses to have the skills and support to provide effective cancer care.
On Florence, cancer nursing education sits alongside broader nursing education, so you can build the wider knowledge your practice draws on when you need it. Primary health care nurses are often a first point of contact for people affected by cancer, and cancer nurses rely on strong connections with primary care as people move between services. By bringing our education together on Florence, we're helping to strengthen that link and support more connected care.
This partnership is a model for working together across nursing, and we are excited about the door it has opened to more specialty learning hubs within Florence, so that education is shared rather than siloed.
The work doesn't stop here. We're now using a gap analysis of existing education to develop new rapid learning modules, and soon we'll share more about how education providers can contribute to the hub. If you're an educator, we'll be in touch soon with information on how to use Florence alongside AusCaN, the Australian Cancer Nursing Capability Framework, to support your team's professional development.
Florence is completely free. You can set learning goals, save resources for later and track and capture your CPD as you go. If you haven't already, download the Florence app, create your profile and follow the Cancer Nursing Learning Hub at florence.today/cnsa.
I'd like to thank APNA for their collaboration, and our working group and Education Standing Committee for their generous input.
Warm regards,
Jemma Still
CNSA CEO