ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide the reader with an overview of the key issues that require consideration when developing quality cancer and palliative care information for service users, which should subsequently ensure effective communication. It analyses the roles of the cancer/palliative care educator, patients and carers in promoting the development and use of effective, high-quality service user information. The notion of a suitably knowledgeable healthcare professional has come from patients' and carers' experiences of meetings with staff who were only able to provide them with minimal information about their situation and in some instances no relevant information at all. In the Cancer Services Users Information Project there was a clear consensus among staff, patients and carers that a multi-disciplinary team approach to developing user information was needed to ensure that service users' views and the relevant health and social care disciplines were represented as appropriate. Other contributors included local support groups and voluntary organisations such as hospices.
