Being asked to write a foreword for this tenth edition of The Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures is a great honour. Since it was first published back in 1992, the manual has gained a strong international reputation and is in daily use by nurses across the world, ensuring that their practice is both evidence based and effective. As such, and with the ever‐increasing availability of clinical information to all those with vested interests in healthcare, the regular updating of this manual takes on more and more significance.

This manual draws together up‐to‐date procedures and practices, providing an essential resource of current knowledge against which nurses can critically analyse the judgements they exercise in a variety of clinical settings. Nursing care in 2020 is under constant scrutiny, and nurses are called upon on a daily basis to provide reassurance to patients, their families and loved ones, and the public at large. This Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures is a real practical help to all engaged in providing nursing care, whether in a ward, over the telephone, in a day‐care setting or in the wider community. Users of this tenth edition will discover a new chapter on wellbeing and self‐care, as well as additional information on topics such as falls management and antibiotic resistance, to name but two. Keeping up to date also involves embracing new technologies, and as such the manual's online version has been enhanced, further increasing accessibility, and for the first time includes helpful videos of some of the more complex procedures.

The Standards of Proficiency for Registered Nurses, launched by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in January 2019, are an explicit statement to the public of the skills and knowledge they can expect from the nurses who care for them. This manual is an excellent resource for nurses wanting to enhance or update their skills in light of those proficiencies; indeed, each chapter begins with a statement of the proficiencies to which it relates.

Traditionally, one huge strength of this manual has been that it has benefited from contributions from nurses who are both expert and active in clinical practice, and this edition is no exception. There are additional valuable contributions from their healthcare colleagues. This has the double advantage not only of ensuring that the manual reflects the reality of current practice but also ensuring that nurses and other staff at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust are frequently reviewing the evidence and reflecting upon their care.

Wherever they work across the globe, those involved in nursing are united in their dedication to providing care that is individually and sensitively planned. To provide this care, they need ready access to the most reliable, up‐to‐date sources of the best available evidence. In commending this tenth edition of The Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures to you, I have no doubt that it will play a huge part in enabling nurses to perform their core functions. It is fitting that this manual, with its international outlook, should carry the name of the Royal Marsden Hospital, which also enjoys a worldwide reputation for excellence.

A work of this renown and complexity does not come to fruition without a great deal of hard work and I would like to pay a warm tribute to the editors of this tenth edition. Of these, Sara Lister has nurtured the development of the manual since its sixth edition, in 2004; by contrast, Justine Hofland and Hayley Grafton have joined Sara this year as new editors and their input has been considerable. I would also like to pay tribute to all the nurses and allied health professionals at the Royal Marsden Hospital who have worked so diligently to help produce this tenth edition.