Doing it all or doing it best? New evidence on where specialist cancer nurses make the biggest difference

Cancer nurses are the largest group of health professionals caring for people affected by cancer, and many of us know what it’s like to stretch to fill gaps in a busy service. With nursing workforce shortages growing worldwide, a new open access umbrella review in the Journal of Advanced Nursing asks a timely question: where do specialist cancer nurses add the most value?

The review was led by Australian researchers including Carla Thamm and Elise Button, with Catherine Paterson and Raymond Chan as co-senior authors. It brought together 34 systematic reviews published between 2014 and 2025, covering 330 primary studies and more than 190,000 people with cancer. The nurse-led interventions ranged from education, counselling and symptom management to care coordination, navigation and follow-up. Nurses delivered them face to face, by telephone and online, at every point from diagnosis through to survivorship.

Nurse-led care performed most strongly in supporting self-management and behaviour change, where 10 of 14 reviews favoured it over comparators. It also performed well for symptom burden (17 of 29 reviews) and patient satisfaction (10 of 17). For quality of life, survival and health service use, outcomes were comparable to other models of care. One notable finding is that more than 80% of interventions were delivered on top of usual care rather than in place of other health professionals. That means the evidence mostly shows what nurses add, not a straight comparison with other disciplines.

For cancer nurses and service leaders, the take-home message is to describe, measure and report nurse-led care clearly so its value can be demonstrated.

Read the full article (open access)

The review was funded by the McGrath Foundation.