Gill OliverDame Gillian Oliver

DBE, FRCN

Gill Oliver is an expert in cancer nursing and palliative care and has been instrumental in developing cancer services, policy and strategy in the UK and beyond. She has been involved with cancer nursing for many years - at a practical level as a ward sister, at national level while working as Adviser in Oncology Nursing at RCN, and at organisational and managerial levels as Director of Patient Services.

She has represented cancer nursing in many national and international organisations, including the Board of the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care, the Chief Medical Officer’s Expert Advisory Group on Cancer and, most recently, the Department of Health’s National Advisory Group on Palliative and Supportive Care.

Gill joined Macmillan Cancer Relief as UK Director of Service Development in April 2000 and has actively promoted the voice of the service user as well as professional knowledge, skill and experience in the development of effective cancer services.

Since retiring from full time work in October 2004, she has continued with Macmillan in a part-time capacity as Adviser for Nursing and Allied Health Professionals. She also remains a Trustee of the National Council for Palliative Care and is undertaking various projects related to cancer services, nursing and care.

She is proud to have been a part of the development of key policy and guidance documents that have made a real change in cancer services. Her inspirations have been nurses with enthusiasm and leadership skills as well visionaries such as Richard Wells and Robert Tiffany.

Her own vision for the future is "a time when people affected by cancer have their needs effectively and accurately assessed and met, when they are true partners in the development and implementation of their care and when the unique role that nurses contribute is widely recognised and understood".

She lives in Cheshire.

Publications

Gill Oliver is a member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Cancer Care and regularly contributes articles as well as comment and editorials for professional nursing journals. Some examples of her extensive list of publications include:

  • Three chapters in Verena Tschudin’s 1989 edition of Nursing the patient with cancer and one chapter in the second edition (1996)
  • A chapter in Webb’s Health Education for Professionals (1993)
  • A chapter in Sylvia Denton’s Breast Cancer Care (1995)
  • "Back to bulk with change on the menu" in Eating Matters, University of Newcastle (1996)
  • Various publications (with others) for the Royal College of Nursing, including: Standards of care cancer nursing (1990), A structure for cancer nursing services (1996) and Guidelines for good practice in cancer nursing education (1996)
  • Cancer services in the UK, European Journal of Cancer Care (2001).