So, you think you don’t do genomics? CNO England Summit

(21 September 2022) After a covid enforced break, the CNO (England) summit returned this year with a packed programme considering many key issues for the profession. The breakout session “So, you think you don’t do genomics” prompted senior leaders from across the country to think about how genomics is already being used within their Trusts and to consider what their nurses and midwives will need to further embed genomics within clinical service.

Dr. Emma Tonkin (Academic Lead for the national programme) introduced how genomics is changing healthcare delivery.  She introduced the seven Genomic Medicine Service Alliances (GMSA) which have been set up nationally to embed genomics into every day clinical practice, with a Chief Nurse on the Board of each GMSA, before handing over to Dr. Naomi Chapman (National Director) who set out the current work taking place across four cancer, two rare disease and a feto-maternal pathway.

As well as setting out the timelines for these projects and the anticipated outputs and resources that will be created, Naomi also spoke about plans to identify and develop further projects to roll out in the next year of the programme.

Dr. Tracie Miles (Associate Director of Nursing and Midwifery, South-West GMSA) ended the session by sharing the work of the SWGMSA BRCA variant transformation project. If you have a fault (mutation) in one of the BRCA genes, your risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer is increases.

The project has enabled over 80% of trusts to mainstream BRCA testing in the ovarian cohort to include developing nurse-led clinics. Next step will be to scale up the work from the breast element of the project to work with the national programme looking at the breast pathway.