I am part of a small team of Specialist Nurses at Prostate Cancer UK providing support and information to those affected by prostate cancer and benign prostate problems.
With incidence rates continuing to rise, prostate cancer is predicted to become the most commonly diagnosed cancer 2030. Alongside this, we are also observing more men surviving the disease.
With just under 14,000 contacts to the Specialist Nurse service last year, one of the many challenges in providing specialist support and information at the charity compared to a specialist role within a clinical setting is the absence of any paralinguistic communication that would normally exist when providing specialist face-to-face support.
The specialist support and information at Prostate Cancer UK is provided through telephone, email, online live-chat and social media platforms and having the communication skills to manage these interactions via these channels is an essential requirement of my role.
9am
I log onto the telephone service. One of the many challenges of my role is being explicit about the remit of the service, and managing the expectations of service-users, whilst continuing to have a positive impact on their health and wellbeing.
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