| Sumario: | Significance & Background: As part of the Australian Cancer Nursing and Navigation Program (2023), the McGrath Foundation, a Australian cancer nursing charity that has delivered nursing care to people affected by breast cancer for over 20 years, was asked by the Australian Government to expand its focus from specialist breast cancer nursing to specialist cancer nurse roles to support people with any cancer type. Prospective stakeholder feedback suggested common barriers and facilitators to establishing the new Mc-Grath Cancer Care Nurse (MCCN) roles and service delivery in a timely manner. Purpose: To explore the barriers and facilitators to establishing new MCCN roles and services and, develop strategies to support the implementation of the roles, to ensure optimal integration of evidence-based specialist cancer nursing practice. Interventions: Three key interventions to support nurse incumbents in the establishment of their role and to build knowledge, skills and confidence to ensure safe and effective service delivery: * A hybrid onboarding pathway, including self-directed learning modules with reflective practice activities and milestone achievement flags, and augmentation (if needed) with supported post-graduate enrolment. * The provision of a McGrath Foundation Nurse Clinical Lead (NCL) to deliver clinical supervision and mentoring and a McGrath Foundation Program Lead (PL) for operational support. * Business process mapping undertaken early in the employment period to document current and future state MCCN service development, with further exploration of identified barriers and facilitators in focus group format with stakeholders to support service planning and implementation. Results: 57 MCCNs have commenced in non-breast cancer positions, across all Australian states and territories (Nov 2024-Sept 2025). Of these, 38 MCCN roles specialise in one or two tumour types; 19 are multi-tumour stream focussed. All 57 MCCNs have progressed the onboarding pathway, with demonstrated evidence of successful role implementation in variable timeframes, dependent on facilitators and barriers. Twenty-eight MCCNs have been supported in postgraduate enrollment. Discussion: The establishment of MCCN roles into services with existing specialist cancer nursing roles integrate more easily. MCCNs in multi-tumour streams who are part-time or based outside metropolitan areas encounter greater barriers to establishing their service in comparison with full-time, metropolitan, single tumour stream focussed MCCNs. The supervision and mentorship provided by the NCL is an invaluable scaffold for MCCNs. The MCCN business process mapping, including establishing connections with other cancer NGOs in this process, is a critical success factor.
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