Many of EONS’ members belong to their National Cancer Nursing Society. In 2020, EONS had 32 National Society Members, accounting for more than 21,000 cancer nurses.

EONS has in recent years launched significant initiatives and projects to increase the recognition of cancer nursing, advance cancer nursing as a specialty, develop occupational and patient safety and support the development of high quality education: its National Society members are a key part of this work, helping drive and support these projects and also benefiting from them.

National Cancer Nursing Societies/Inter-European specialist nursing groups involved in cancer care can join or renew their membership with EONS at any time in the year by completing an online application form (see the Membership pages).

National societies are more resource-efficient and capable of achieving greater impact for the benefit of the sector than the individual. Through membership of EONS, national societies maximise resources and create a forum where diverse cancer nurses and nurse leaders can meet; exchanging knowledge and experiences, and jointly create ideas and solutions to challenges in the sector.

There are a lot of possible benefits to setting up a national cancer nursing society. One of the most significant is that a national society provides a more cohesive, credible and powerful voice for all cancer nurses that are members of it.

EONS national societies can play an important role in helping to strengthen the healthcare of a country by:

• Coordinating the sector demands, and creating a joint platform for engagement and negotiations, thus facilitating and strengthening communications towards national health policy, for the interests of people affected by cancer.

• Providing a platform for sharing the experience and expertise of individual cancer nurses and the ideal platform for public debate on existing and emerging healthcare topics.

• Providing a single platform for communicating with the national healthcare sector enabling effective information dissemination and balancing of power.