Abstract
As a nurse who has spent a big chunk of her professional career working to support the development of capacity, capability and focus in both research
One way we, and other health care professions, champion as a means of creating the conditions where research and innovation flourish is through the development of clinical–academic careers. Here nurses are afforded the opportunity to simultaneously research, innovate and practice their craft. The first paper by Bradbury and colleagues presents a review of the literature undertaken to inform the development of clinical academic nurses in primary care in England.
For some time now, the nursing academy has recognised the benefits of talent spotting and nurturing pre-registration students and early career nurses who show academic potential. However, many students are reportedly struggling to engage with the theory of research, in isolation from their practice. The paper by Menzies and colleagues describes and evaluates a scheme designed to expose undergraduate students to some of the principles of, and methods used in, research and innovation. Students were aligned to a registered improvement or service evaluation project over a four-week period thus affording them the opportunity to participate in a ‘real’ project, designed to make a difference.
The next paper presents an approach to building capacity and capability to provide evidence-informed practice. Cooper and her team describe a local initiative to overcome barriers to using evidence in practice. They highlight the challenges and the complexity of these processes which arguably have, historically, been the poor relation to ‘research’.
The following paper by Dhollande and colleagues neatly provides a guide for a novice.
Manning and colleagues present an on-line survey undertaken in the UK at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper seeks to provide leadership and direction by identifying priorities for research in nursing both during the pandemic and beyond.
The final peer reviewed paper in this edition provides insights into the lived experiences of nurses who volunteered to work in Wuhan at the start of what became a global pandemic. Their selfless acts indeed spoke much louder than words.
Of course, all of these papers have lively commentaries published alongside them. At the Journal of Research in Nursing (JRN) we recognise that commentary writing can be part of our contribution towards building capacity and capability in nursing. JRN commentaries can be a means of encouraging and enabling early career nurses to dip their toe into the world of publishing by reading and critically reflecting on a paper and offering their perspective. If you would like to get involved, please do get in touch.
The critical skills required to review evidence, bring about change in practice, develop clinical–academic career pathways identify a focus for knowledge development and rise to the challenges of a global pandemic, are fundamental to ensure nursing practice is safe and effective. When considering the challenges faced by nurses endeavouring to ‘do the right thing’ highlighted in these papers, the kinship and solidarity articulated by the nurses who volunteered to work in Wuhan is such a powerful message and it is clear that strong professional and political leadership is essential if the potential of nursing’s contribution to global health is to be fully realised.
Regular followers of JRN will know that in June this year we held our second on-line mid-pandemic event, building on our focus on rural health published in a ‘double edition’ last year. A panel of nurses and primary-care doctors led a conversation on advancing nursing leadership and the nursing contribution to multidisciplinary rural health care practice. If you missed it, you can catch up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2rHx8E1u_A
It was clear to all disciplines participating in this event that population health can only be improved through collaborative action. It is so obvious and so easy to say and yet so often it is found to be incredibly difficult to achieve. Vaccinating the world’s population during a pandemic is a case in point.
Whilst on that note, it seems to me that reducing overseas aid, and cancelling an investment in international nursing development in particular, because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK (Nursing Times, 2021), makes no sense whatsoever. Surely the pandemic, ‘an epidemic occurring on a scale that crosses international boundaries, usually affecting people on a worldwide scale’, serves to focus our attention on the need to keep investing in and working closely with people in other countries. The argument is, of course, an economic one and we know that all economic arguments are underpinned by assumptions, so what might be the assumptions here?
The simplistic assumption might be ‘we can no longer afford overseas investment because we are so impoverished as a consequence of the pandemic in the UK’. This is certainly an assumption that one can imagine playing out well in tabloid news outlets seeking to prop up a populist government, apparently unable or unwilling to adequately renumerate ‘their own’ nurses let alone help ‘other countries’ nurses. The UK Government had pledged £5 million towards the training of nurses and midwives in developing countries across the world. So why cancel it, whose interests are served? Or might that be too nuanced a question to ask in this case? Is it simply that reducing the percentage of this part of the budget would draw attention to how meagre it was in the first place? Has it been cancelled out of political expediency? Or is the assumption that it is only £5 million, so it does not really matter whether it is cancelled or not? Whilst £5 million to you or I is a fortune, to the world’s 6th largest economy it is a miniscule amount. The reality for the countries that would benefit from such investment is however far reaching. It was reported that the decision will bring 180 ‘lifeline’ projects to a halt (Nursing Times, 2021). Whether the decision has been driven by political advantage, expediency, indifference or a combination of all three, identifying the potential assumptions underpinning the decision is worthwhile. It may put the profession in a stronger position to push back, and raise professional and public awareness of the shortcomings, with a view to overturning the decision.
From my world view, it is encouraging that nursing’s largest professional union in the UK has recently put its own house in order, with regard to its commitment to international collaboration. After a sustained campaign by members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), a decision was taken at its annual general meeting this year to re-join the International Council of Nurses. I think it might be difficult, if not disingenuous, to argue against a government for dropping its fiscal commitment to global nursing when your professional organisation had dropped its commitment to global collaboration, on monetary grounds.
If there is anything the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare it is that we are all connected as individuals, as societies and as nations. The question is whether those individuals, societies and nations can look critically at their values and actions and acknowledge how they contribute to the impact of the pandemic and recovery from it.
Talking of recovery from Covid-19, the first guest editorial in this edition is penned by two of the UKs most experienced senior nurses. Elaine Maxwell is Scientific Adviser to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on ‘Long Covid’ and Mark Radford is Chief Nurse, Health Education England. Their editorial reveals the UK statistics on Long Covid and the impact it is having on the lives of so many people. They argue that the knowledge, skills and expertise to address the impact of Long Covid lies firmly within the nursing profession with its history of supporting people with long-term conditions. However, to date there has been little evidence of the profession rising to the challenge. They ask ‘Is this because the system is failing to recognise the wider contribution of nursing expertise or has nursing as a profession forgotten the value of its own models of care and underpinning theories?’ If that is not a page turner, I do not know what is!
The second guest editorial builds on our work last year when we partnered with the UK-based charity the Foundation of Nursing Studies (FONS) in a virtual debate. The debate examined whether the act of nursing depletes nurses’ wellbeing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncgtYMBhbiU). The editorial in this edition on wellbeing by the Chief Executive of FONS references an eclectic collection of papers that say something about wellbeing, previously published in JRN. The curated online collection and this guest editorial are all free to access, for a time-limited period, here: https://journals.sagepub.com/page/jrn/collections/virtual-special-issues/wellbeing
We conclude this edition with a Perspectives piece by Toni McIntosh, an elite athlete, researcher and registered nurse. Toni extols the value of the global parkrun initiative as a means of improving the physical and mental health and wellbeing of both nurses and the public.
We hope there is much in this edition to inform, infuriate and inspire!