Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Gynaecology/UGI Cancer Support Worker

The closing date is 14 December 2025

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our Gynaecology and Upper Gastro-Intestinal Cancer Specialist Nursing Team.

In this role, you will play a key part in supporting the operational delivery of clinical services. Working closely with Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) and the wider Multidisciplinary Team (MDT), you will actively contribute to the care and management of patients with gynaecological and upper GI cancers.

This position offers the chance to make a meaningful impact on patient care while collaborating with highly skilled professionals across specialist services.

Main duties of the job

We are seeking an enthusiastic individual with strong communication, interpersonal, and organisational skills to take on the following responsibilities:

Patient Support: Provide clear information and compassionate support to cancer patients throughout their care journey.
Point of Contact: Act as a central contact for patient queries, ensuring timely referral and signposting to appropriate supportive services.
Survivorship Initiatives: Contribute to the development and delivery of cancer survivorship programmes, helping patients navigate health and social care systems and build self-management strategies (e.g., health and well-being events).
Follow-Up Care: Support risk-stratified follow-up programmes for gynaecological cancers, ensuring continuity and quality of care.

About us

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides hospital services to a growing population of around 700,000 people living across Bedfordshire and the surrounding areas across two busy hospital sites in Bedford and Luton. Both hospital sites offer key services such as A&E, Obstetrics-led Maternity and Paediatrics. You will be joining a friendly, high performing Trust committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of staff. As one of the largest NHS Trusts in our region you will have access to a programme of high quality training and development to help you grow your career. The Trust continues to be committed to delivering the best patient care using the best clinical knowledge and technology available.

We not only recruit based on qualifications and experience - we recruit individuals who demonstrate the behaviours which underpin our Trusts core values. We achieve this by using values based recruitment. We are dedicated to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible for everyone, we are committed to promoting equality and diversity, and creating a culture that values differences.

Please note that vacancies may close prior to the advertised closing date when sufficient number of applications have been received. All new staff will be subject to a probationary period covering first 6 months in post. Travel between hospital sites may be required. Please review all documents attached to ensure you familiarize yourself with all requirements of the job.

Date posted

01 December 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year per annum

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

418-AHP7290-CW

Job locations

Bedford Hospital

Kempston Road

Bedford

MK42 9DJ

Job description

Job responsibilities

Provide regular supported conversations with the person living with cancer, assessing their holistic needs, and supporting them to self-manage by providing relevant information and advice, and signposting to other Macmillan resources and services available to meet their identified needs

Following a holistic needs assessment, co-ordinate care and development of a personalised care plan with the person living with cancer so they can access the right help at the right time and providing a personalised response to any changes in need

Provides practical and emotional support to people living with cancer and their families. Recognising information needs may change over time and working with the person to ensure they have all the information and support they need at all stages of their cancer journey

Assess and interpret the needs of individuals attending/contacting the service and respond effectively to the needs of individuals providing a professional quality service

Triage individuals contacting the service face to face or by telephone / email and work autonomously to prioritise needs and initiate appropriate responses according to protocols and individual pathways

Deal with difficult and highly emotive situations in a sensitive manner using a high degree of empathy, understanding, diplomacy, integrity and base decisions on own judgement

Act autonomously in managing emotive and complex situations and know when to seek help

Demonstrate the ability to recognise and respond appropriately when faced with a sudden deterioration or an emergency situation, alerting the team or enabling rapid response as appropriate

Provide information and signposting to other supportive services and liaise with clinical staff to support patients and carers in distress

Be responsible for own workload, providing clinical advice within sphere of own knowledge and seek expertise as required

Able to be adaptable, multitask and prioritise under pressure working in an acute busy environment

Work unsupervised, with the ability to respond to situations without prior warning

Respond to any queries from patients, carers and visitors providing verbal and written information in a timely manner

Ensure that situations or enquiries requiring specialist intervention are referred appropriately and in a timely manner

Implement, monitor and review the care plan with the patient and carer, in line with standard operating procedures and protocols and modify as appropriate under the supervision of the Clinical Nurse Specialist

Please refer to the attached documents