Professional Standards in Psychosocial Oncology
Registrants are expected to have knowledge, skills and behaviours appropriate to their role in the following areas:
- The psychological effects of cancer and its treatment on individuals, particularly in relation to loss of confidence and fear of recurrence
- The psychosocial consequences associated with living with and beyond cancer
- Effective and appropriate communication with people of different ages, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds along the cancer journey
- Decision-making to seek help where there are concerns about an individual’s mental wellbeing
- Use of local pathways to refer individuals with psychosocial support needs to appropriate services
- Understanding and knowledge of the wide range of sources of support that are important to individuals living with and beyond cancer
- The potential psychosocial consequences associated with living with and beyond cancer
- The needs of individuals using cancer, late effects, survivorship and follow-up services to provide psychological support on a wide range of diverse issues
- Supporting individual patients in developing coping strategies that are effective for them as they live with and beyond cancer
- Helping patients to develop approaches to monitoring and managing their own mental wellbeing
- Providing advice and interventions that enable individuals to manage the impact of cancer and its treatment on their relationships with those important to them
- Making appropriate interventions to reduce the potential for individuals to be inappropriately disadvantaged at work by the consequences of their diagnosis and treatment
- Using different approaches to assessing psychosocial needs
- Using complex strategies to deal with communication issues
- Identifying when patients have mental health needs that require referral to specialist services and facilitates this process
- Working with other agencies and services to ensure that cancer, late effects and survivorship care is fully integrated into the care plans of individuals with new and pre-existing mental health illness