Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulations to Megan Jadzinski, Sara White, Sue Way and Dominique Mylod on the acceptance of their paper ‘How are Fitness to Practise processes applied in UK Higher Education Institutions? – A systematic review’ by the international journal Nurse Education in Practice. All authors are based in the Faculty of Health and Social Science, or were as Prof. Sue Way retired recently.
Well done,
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Dr. Heidi Singleton, Programme Lead for Children’s and Young People’s Nursing in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences had a paper from her PhD ‘Accounting for complexity in critical realist trials: the promise of PLS-SEM’ accepted this month by the Journal of Critical Realism. This journal is published by Taylor and Francis.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Today ResearchGate informed Prof. Vanora Hundley and I that our paper in the Nursing Standard of 2002 had reached 90,000 reads. This short methods paper called ‘The Importance of Pilot Studies’ [1] was one of our earlier attempts, nearly two decades ago, to publish more of our work in practitioners journals. This approach has been highly successful in terms of reaching a wider audience. We have written longer, more sophisticated research methods papers on pilot studies over the years, including in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Social Research Update, and the SAGE encyclopedia on research methods [2-6], but none of these has been read or cited as often as our short paper in the Nursing Standard. 
The term ‘pilot studies’ refers to mini versions of a full-scale study (also called ‘feasibility’ studies), as well as the specific pre-testing of a particular research instrument such as a questionnaire or interview schedule. Pilot studies are a crucial element of good study design. Conducting a pilot study does not guarantee success in the main study, but it does increase the likelihood of success. Pilot studies fulfill a range of important functions and can provide valuable insights for other researchers. There is a need for more discussion among researchers of both the process and outcomes of pilot studies.
References:
Bournemouth University Ph.D. student Peter Wolfensberger presented today at the 5th Sigma European Conference in Coimbra, Portugal. This is probably the first major global online conference in nursing! The title of Peter’s presentation was Creating Meaning – People Living with Mental Illness in Switzerland. In true COVID-19 style he gave his presentation life online. Consequently, this workshop session was well attended by nurses from across Europe, and it had the added benefit that all his Ph.D. supervisors could attend online too. The World Health Organisations (WHO) has designated the year 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife”, in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. This Sigma European Conference focused very much on importance of nurses and nursing in health care provision.
Peter has successfully defended his thesis and is currently writing up a few minor corrections. He has been supervised by Dr. Sarah Thomas, Prof. Sabine Hahn and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.
Congratulations to Dr. Luisa Cescutti-Butler and Prof. Sue Way in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of their latest research article. This new paper called ‘The experience of student midwives being taught newborn infant physical examination (NIPE) as an extracurricular activity at a university in the UK: A descriptive survey study’ has been accepted by Nurse Education in Practice [1]. The paper went online pre-publication earlier this week.
Congratulations
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Bournemouth University (Principal investigator- Janet Scammell) and Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (RBCH) recently collaborated on a Burdett Trust for Nursing funded research project (Making TRACS to improve nurse retention) on improving nurse retention. One of the main findings of this collaborative research project was what helps keep nurses in the workplace. The main factors that impact on nurse retention are Transition periods in one’s life, Resilience to cope with stressful situations, Authentic leadership as role models, Commitment of the organisation, and Support of a nurse’s health and wellbeing. Using these main concepts, we developed an infographic to present the findings of our research to enable an improvement in nurse retention.
Here is a glimpse, but you can click on the link below for the full pdf!
Helping nurses stay_BU.RBCH.TRACS2019
Bournemouth University facilitated a Strategic planning meeting to develop a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Framework for Nepal last week in Kathmandu. The planning meeting was held on 30th July 2019 at the Institute of Medicine IOM Maharajgunj Nursing Campus. Midwifery is not formally recognised in Nepal, i.e. as a profession separate from nursing, therefore when refer to nursing CPD in this blog we mean both ‘nurses’ and ‘nurse-midwives’.
Bournemouth University is collaborating in this project with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK, the IOM Nursing Campus, the Nursing Association of Nepal (NAN), MIDSON, the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) and several other key stakeholders in Nepal to support nursing regulatory bodies to establish mandatory CPD and/or post-registration training programmes relevant to their current practice in nursing. 
The Bournemouth team (led by Dr. Bibha Simkhada with Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr.Pramod Regmi) argued that CPD offers nurses the opportunity to maintain, improve and broaden knowledge, expertise and develop their personal and professional qualities to enhance practice and career development. Nepal has had limited process and progress in ensuring CPD for nurses and the uptake of post-registration education and training programmes or CPD tends to be ad hoc. Generally, CPD in Nepal remains under-developed as showing evidence of having received CPD is not currently a requirement of nurses when they re-register every five year.
This project is a good example of a BU FUSION project as our earlier Research in the form of a needs assessment will to the introduction of CPD which is of course, post-registration Education in nursing, helping to improve Practice in a low-income country. We think we have had at least some impact on nursing in Nepal as the general feeling of our strategic planning meeting positive towards introducing CPD in the near future in Nepal.
Bournemouth University in collaboration with Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (RBCH) held a very successful conference (sold out!) on July 1st to discuss the topic of nurse retention and our Burdett Trust for Nursing funded research project- Making TRACS to improve nurse retention (Principal Investigator- Janet Scammell). This conference attracted 100 attendees representing nurse clinicians, workforce developers, and education and training from across Dorset.
Nurse retention is a highly problematic concern across the UK and negative impacts are felt within patient quality of care, individuals’ wellbeing and healthcare systems. To address this issue, this project aimed to investigate whether the retention of registered nurses at RBCH can be improved through the use of the TRACS nurse retention model. Developed from an extensive literature review, the TRACS model focuses on key factors known to impact on intention to stay: supporting Transition at key career junctures, building Resilience, facilitating Authentic leadership throughput the organisation, securing Commitment to support changing work practices and providing on-going Support for staff.
Incorporating the elements of the TRACS model and involving registered nurses from RBCH in what is needed to improve nurse retention, this project developed the online resource- Support4Nurses http://support4nurses.uk/. This was presented at the conference as well as our key findings of the three main areas to improve nurse retention: staff development, authentic leadership and valuing staff, and supporting health and wellbeing. Future plans are to work with RBCH to implement learning from this project at a local level as well as share our approach and outcomes more widely.
We will be posting slides of the presentations on our website in the coming weeks. If you have any questions about the conference, please contact Janet Scammell at jscammell@bournemouth.ac.uk.
The HEFCE grant letter (sent from BIS to HEFCE) for funding in 2016-17 was published on 4th March and contains some information on RKE funding that you may find of interest.
REF
Research funding
Research Councils
HEIF
NCUB
You can access the full letter here: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2016/Name,107598,en.html
Research Councils UK (RCUK) has published a full response to the Higher Education Green Paper and the Nurse Review, which sets out key principles that the Research Councils collectively consider should be the basis on which reform of the research funding landscape should take place.
The response relates to Part D of the Green Paper relating to the research landscape and to the broad direction of travel recommended by Sir Paul Nurse. It does not address individual questions specifically. Their overriding priority is to ensure that the UK’s world-class research is supported through the most effective and efficient means possible.
On Wednesday the government outlined their plans for spending over the next five years in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) and Autumn Statement. The main points in relation to research and KE are:
Research councils:
Budget:
Research Excellence Framework:
Funding, priorities and investments:
Health and social care:
Science and technology:
Arts, sports and culture:
Knowledge exchange / enterprise:
Following on from Julie Northam’s synopsis of the Nurse Review of the Research Councils posted last week, you may be interested to see the responses from the many interested parties, such as science lobby groups and learned societies.
Research Professional have provided an analysis of the responses that can be read here. The individual statements are shown below:
Sir Paul Nurse published his review of the UK research councils on 19 November. The full report is available here: Ensuring a Successful Research Endeavour: Review of the UK Research Councils by Paul Nurse. This follows close on the heels of the HE Green Paper (see this blog post for an overview), which stated that it would take the finding of the Nurse review into account alongside feedback received to the consultation.
The key messages of the Nurse review are:
Nurse strongly argues against the merger of the seven research councils.
Instead he recommends the establishment of a new body to oversee research – Research UK, “evolving out of” RCUK. Governance should include representation from government, HEFCE, Innovate UK as well as the research councils.
It’s functions world include:
The individual research councils should concentrate on providing “high quality strategic leadership to their research communities” in the shape of international quality peer review; speeding up grant assessments; improving reporting systems; ensuring diversity and strengthening links with their research communities.
The dual support system of research funding should be maintained and government should set up a ministerial committee to coordinate strategic research priorities across government.
He argues strongly for the retention of ring fencing for the science budget.
The Nurse Review of Research Councils has been published today. Follow the link to read the full report. An analysis of what this means will follow in due course.
BIS (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) have launched a formal consultation on reviewing the research councils. The deadline for responses to BIS is 17th April 2015 and BU will be submitting an institutional response that reflects the views of the majority of staff.
To facilitate the production of the institutional response the Deans of Faculty have been invited to each submit a Faculty-based response taking into account the views of academic colleagues. It is of paramount importance that academic and research staff engage with this consultation for two reasons:
The call for evidence focusses on four areas: strategic decision-making, collaborations and partnerships, balance of the funding portfolio, and effective ways of working.
The full consultation document can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nurse-review-of-research-councils-call-for-evidence
The consultation refers to the triennial review of the research councils which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/triennial-review-of-the-research-councils
How to contribute
To contribute to the consultation please send your comments using this form (Faculty response-Nurse-review-of-research-councils-call-for-evidence-form) to your Faculty contact by 27th March as follows:
HSS – Prof Gail Thomas
Management – Prof Keith Wilkes
Media – Stephen Jukes
SciTech – Prof Richard Stillman
Timeline
19th March Launch consultation internally
27th March All individual feedback to be sent to the Deans
1st April Each Dean to send a Faculty response to Jo Garrad
9th April Jo Garrad to send a draft institutional response to John Fletcher
14th April All final feedback to be sent to Jo Garrad
16th April Deadline for submitting final institutional response to BIS
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Horizon Europe News – December 2023