Ms Kay Townsend MSc, BSC (Hons), RN, RNT
Lecturer in Cancer Care
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Kay Townsend is a lecturer within the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton. Kay’s clinical experience is in cancer care, and her educational expertise lies in cancer, palliative and end of life care, communication skills and facilitation of learning. Somehow Kay also became involved in teaching and assessing drug calculations.
Healthcare education for me is first and foremost about enhancing the experience of people with care needs in the development of skilled, critical, capable healthcare professionals.
My nursing career has taken me from early days in respiratory care to cancer care. Before I came to lecture at the University of Southampton I worked for many years in the Cancer Care Directorate at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) in medical and clinical oncology.
I joined the team of lecturers and researchers in cancer, palliative and end of life care at the University of Southampton in 2007. We’ve been careful to ensure that cancer care is threaded through the all graduate and post-graduate pre-registration nursing curriculums and a really exciting development is the core second year (adult nurse) module in palliative and end of life care that I lead. I also lead a post-qualifying degree module about Care of People with Cancer. The credit awarded on successful completion of this degree level module can be used in the MSc in Clinical Leadership in Cancer, Palliative and End of Life Care. This is an innovative programme which considers relational skills of clinical leadership to be pivotal in the development of others and leading and transforming services.
Outside the faculty I contributed to the end of life care communication skills training across the SHA region as both a trainer and in the governance of the training. More recently Macmillan has recently commissioned a practice nurse course in cancer care that will be a practical and active way to develop knowledge and skills of these key practitioners.
In 2014 an honorary contract with UHS means that I return to clinical practice in the malignant haematology nursing team. An insight into the practice and development in this area of nursing will inform not only the pre-registration education but also future post-qualifying nurse education.