Both cancer NGOs see education and training as an important part of their work. Both, for example, are members of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) and encourage their staff to attend EAPC conferences and training programmes. A recent series of lectures, organised as a combined NGO effort to disseminate the Council of Europe Recommendations for Palliative Care, attracted a total of 220 local health professionals.

In the last 5 years the Cyprus Anti-Cancer Society has funded 2 physicians to complete Masters’ courses in Palliative Medicine in the UK. In recent years 3 nurses have completed specialist palliative care training, although only one nurse has stayed on working with the Society. There is now a two week introductory placement in the hospice for all second or third year student nurses at the School of Nursing in Cyprus. The Society is committed to encourage all staff to take part in training, some at seminars provided by the hospice, but they also fund travel to international conferences or scholarships to complete specialist courses, such as Diplomas in Palliative Nursing: Sophia Pantekhi explains:

‘We try, every year, to encourage our staff to attend courses related to palliative care. For example, every year we organize a 2 day seminar on psychosocial oncology. We have had courses on lymphoedema treatment. Our staff attend seminars in Athens and a few members of the nursing staff try to attend the hospice programme in St Christopher’s, either the multi-professional week or the three week programme. Every year we have, with the cooperation of the oncology department, had a closed workshop for the support of the staff to prevent burn out.’³¹

The Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends funds training programmes, such as distance learning courses in palliative care at degree and diploma level for doctors and nurses. The Association also organizes short seminars and conferences. Since 1999 the Association has also funded specialist training courses for doctors, nurses and physiotherapists in different aspects of palliative care such as pain relief, wound management, lymphoedema care; and short courses in psychosocial, communication and bereavement issues, symptom control, and breast cancer. The Association also has links with the School of Nursing in Nicosia, as Jane Kakas explains:

‘The School of Nursing have recognized our work, and they send us their training community nurses, who are doing on a postgraduate one year community nursing course.’

To date three courses have run with around 26 students in each year, but as Jane notes:

‘None of them have actually gone into the community, they’ve all gone back into the hospital because there is no infrastructure. So they’ve been sending us for the last three years their nurses to spend time working with us, so at least they can see an aspect of community care. It’s very experiential learning for them; we don’t have the backup for such training in a very organized fashion. We might organize a bit of a study day on grief and bereavement or a pain lecture for half a day, but it’s very informal. However, they get the experience of community nursing. We try and place them in the community actually with the home care nurse for anything from 3-6 days, that’s all we can offer. We sometimes offer a day with the lymphoedema service and a day with a psychologist.’³²

Both NGOs express the need for an expert committee to work with the government in planning and developing palliative care services and to lobby for policy development. In particular, they would like to see policy which allows provision of the full range of palliative care services in government funded hospitals, available to all patients with other life threatening illnesses.³³