Writing a textbook of such breadth and complexity as this is never the task of a few. Over a hundred healthcare professionals who either work for, or are associated with, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have contributed to updating the content for this edition. A big thank you to them for the great patience they have shown to the editors every time we went back to them – yet again – with a query. We know how incredibly busy you all are. Among all of those we must thank, we have to make a special mention of the Knowledge Resource Manager, Yi Wen Hon, and her incredible ability to promptly find just the reference we needed. We must also express our gratitude to the medical photographers, Stephen Milward and Denis Underwood.

We acknowledge The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust as an organization. The trust's ongoing commitment to excellence in every aspect of patient care is evident in its continued support of this project, which has now been going for over 30 years.

Our thanks must also go to our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, and specifically to Magenta Styles, who has kept alive the significance of this book for nursing in the UK. She has been very gracious when we have missed deadlines. Thanks also to Alison Nick, our project editor, who has been amazing and who has done so much more than her ‘job description’, and to Hazel Bird, copy editor, whose intelligent and thoughtful attention to detail has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Finally, as editors, we are very grateful for the support of our families, whether they have provided technical assistance when computers have crashed, read through our drafts to make sure they made sense, or been so understanding when we have ‘preferred’ to read a manuscript rather than a bedtime story.