Nurses recognised for their research contribution

Two Guy’s and St Thomas’ senior nurses are about to start new roles as part of an innovative national scheme to promote nurses and midwives leading research.

Naomi Hare and Tootie Bueser were two of the nurses selected from a strong field of applicants for the NIHR’s 70@70 programme. This month they will start to work as part of the programme, to champion a research active culture among the UK’s nurses and midwives.

The programme aims to recognise the huge, and as yet untapped, potential contribution of senior nurses and midwives to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR looked for senior nurses with experience of improving care for patients by contributing to research, and building a culture in which research can flourish.

Tootie Bueser is a cardiac genetics nurse and has been working at the Trust for 10 years. She is in the final year of an NIHR Fellowship, completing a PhD project on an intervention to support patients with an inherited cardiac condition.

Tootie said: “It’s important to me that we’re supporting nurses and midwives to answer research questions that are relevant to patients. Improving patient care is not just about new treatments, but how patients use treatments and how it all works in practice. This could be enhanced by having nurses and midwives contributing to research.

 “The 70@70 programme could be really revolutionary, and it’s fantastic to have that backing of the NIHR behind us. At the moment there are a lot of nurses and midwives out there doing good work, but we need to create the collective forum and bring everyone out of the woodwork. I’m really excited to be improving the situation locally but also to be contributing to a national vision for nurse-led research. We have an exciting chance to make sure nurses and midwives are viewed as practitioners being able to shape the evidence.”

Naomi Hare is a research matron in Renal, Transplant and Gastroenterology. She started her nursing career in intensive care nursing, and moved into research nursing nine years ago. She has completed a Masters of Clinical Research as part of an NIHR Fellowship to investigate the feasibility of nurse-led ultrasound in intensive care.

Naomi said: “I was only expecting to work in research for a year, and I loved it so much, nine years later I’m still here.

 “The 70@70 programme is a great opportunity to drive nurse and midwife-led research. So often we’re delivering other people’s research questions, but as nurses, we’re really close to the patients’ wants and needs so we have a valuable perspective. I want to empower the nursing and midwifery workforce to undertake their own high quality research for the clinical benefit of our patients. This is a valuable chance for nurses to contribute to setting the research agenda.”

Dame Eileen Sills, Chief Nurse and Deputy Chief Executive at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “I am delighted that as part of 70@70 we were lucky enough to have two members of staff awarded an NIHR grant to enable them to shape the vision of nursing research. I am also delighted that the Nightingale Academy is beginning to embrace research and how we grow and develop our nursing and midwifery contribution to this agenda. I very much look forward to seeing the successes over the coming years.”