Vanessa began her academic career after gaining clinical experience as a Nurse Specialist in Cancer and Palliative Care. Vanessa believes each individual and family, regardless of their life-limiting condition or care setting, deserves expert care. This drive influenced her path into education, research and scholarship realising the potential influence she could have when working with whole communities of learners, extending her reach beyond her core discipline to other healthcare professionals, and investing in them and their ability to influence the quality of care and service provision. Scholarship and research could then be mobilised impacting on policy and practice locally, nationally and internationally.
Committed to education, both personal and for others, Vanessa has worked to establish consistent education standards for the workforce providing general and specialist cancer, palliative and end care, promoting inclusivity and accessibility to learning opportunities. As Chair of Steering Group and Lead Author for the RCN Career and Education Framework for Cancer Nursing and HEE (Yorkshire and the Humber) End of Life Care Learning Outcomes, Vanessa has led projects that impact on workforce development and patient care. Project outputs have informed Government policy through her membership of European Oncology Nursing Society Education Working Group, RCN Cancer and Breast Care Forum Steering Group and HEE/Skills for Health Working Group.
As Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE) Discipline Lead for Nursing and Midwifery, one of Vanessa’s key achievements was supporting the formation of the Biosciences in Nursing Education (BiNE) Group – an international network of academics enhancing teaching of biosciences through shared research and scholarship. The BiNE Quality Assurance Framework (B-QAF) provides bioscience outcomes, and has informed reviews of bioscience content and development of nursing curricula.
Vanessa continues her work with clinical services supporting and evaluating the impact of these frameworks for practitioners, services and patient care. In March 2020, collaborating with HEE and colleagues as part of the Transform, Educate and Empower nurses to improve CANcer care (TEECAN) project, Vanessa launched e-learning sessions (Cancer Nursing Careers) accessible to all UK nurses. Vanessa is also collaborating with hospice partners to establish an Academy for Palliative and End of Life Care Education and Research.