Research is integral to developing the evidence base for practice, including the next generation of drugs, treatment and care.
It has already led to life-saving treatments in all areas of health and care, including Covid-19. To create these treatments, the research sector draws on a diverse pool of talent from every discipline and specialty across the health and care system.
“We are simply not making the most of the opportunities for nurses and midwives to contribute their experience and expertise through research”
Nurses and midwives play a critical part in this and make an unparalleled contribution to clinical research.
The vision of the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s nursing and midwifery team is to inspire colleagues who support, deliver and lead research.
With this in mind, we are creating opportunities within a careers framework to allow research to be part of everyone’s role.
Nurses and midwives are the largest group of health and care professionals. There are 367,802 nurses and health visitors and 27,127 midwives in the NHS alone.
However, the overall proportion of nurses and midwives engaged in research in some way is not known.
A landmark census from 2022, initiated by a group of NIHR 70@70 senior nurse and midwife research leaders, found that there are at least 7,312 nurses and midwives engaged in the delivery of clinical research, most commonly clinical trials, across the UK and Northern Ireland.
This represents less than 2% of the overall workforce. We are simply not making the most of the opportunities for nurses and midwives to contribute their experience and expertise through research delivery and want this figure to be higher.
So as part of the NIHR’s Shape the Future campaign, we want more nurses and midwives to shape the future of service delivery and treatment options by getting involved in research.
Our campaign highlights how they can do this and how research improves patient care, benefits the healthcare system, and improves job satisfaction and staff retention.
Research nurses and midwives are a vital part of the research team, delivering and leading research, which in turn informs practice change both in clinical and social care settings.
Their responsibilities include inviting patients and healthy participants to join research studies such as clinical trials, providing nursing care, undertaking study procedures which lead directly to new drugs, treatments or care pathways.
A report from the Medical Schools Council published last year showed research can improve clinical practice, reduce the cost of healthcare and drive policy change.
Other evidence identifies a link between the engagement of healthcare organisations in research and improvements in healthcare performance.
In the financial years 2016-17 to 2018-19, it is estimated that clinical research supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Network generated £8bn in gross value added.
Nurses actively conducting research benefits patient outcomes, as shown in evidence from acute care NHS Trusts.
Patients at research-active hospitals have more confidence in staff and tend to be better informed about their condition and medication.
Some evidence has shown a correlation in NHS trusts between increased research and reduced deaths as well as research-active trusts having lower risk-adjusted mortality for acute admissions.
This evidence base now needs to expand to explore whether and how research makes a difference in community and social care settings.
There can be personal benefits too. Getting involved in research allows personal and professional development for nurses and midwives as they develop new skills and experience, which in turn boosts careers and adds value to the CV.
Education and development opportunities are directly linked to job satisfaction and staff retention.
To help us engage with nurses and midwives, the NIHR Shape the Future campaign is encouraging nurses and midwives in the NHS and other health and care settings to shape the future of healthcare and take their first step into the world of research.
Nurses and midwives can get involved supporting research through finding out about research studies taking place in their place of work. Support is often required for studies running in clinical areas.
This could include identifying patients with a particular condition so they could be enrolled and benefit from a research study, or taking a blood sample or administering medication at a certain time.
It is also possible to find out more about opportunities to be involved by speaking to local trust research and development offices, the lead research nurse/midwife in their organisation or nurses in their area of work (often in a slightly different uniform) who are working within a research team.
They can also contact their local NIHR Clinical Research Network for more information about research taking place in their area.
New roles are emerging across the NHS and other settings where nurses and midwives can undertake hybrid or joint roles with part of their time in a clinical role and the rest in a research team, running research studies usually within their specialty area.
Many models exist and one recently won the research category at the Nursing Times Awards and was recently highlighted in a Nursing Times article.
“We want to open new doors into research for any and all nurses and midwives – to unlock talent and energy from across the health and care sector”
There are also many NIHR awards and schemes that can help nurses and midwives develop their careers and get more involved in research, including the Associate Principal Investigator Scheme for those already working in research, the Principal Investigator Pipeline Programme and the Senior Research Leader – Nursing & Midwifery Programme.
These schemes all encourage nurses and midwives to have a research thread to their careers without leaving their current roles.
There is support at the highest level for making research every nurse and midwife’s business. A key theme of the Chief Nursing Officer for England’s strategic plan for research is releasing nurses’ research potential.
It sets out the ambition to create a climate in which nurses are empowered to lead, use, deliver and participate in research as part of their job.
This was followed by a chief midwifery officer strategy in 2023 setting out similar ambitions for the midwifery profession.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan published earlier this year calls for the upskilling of the workforce as the key to unlocking the potential of science, research and technology to deliver the care of the future.
Research-active nurses and midwives will not only help shape the future of care for patients and the populations we serve but also of the health system itself.
In the year that we celebrated all of the healthcare professionals across the NHS as part of its 75th anniversary, I hope we can inspire more engagement with research.
We want to open new doors into research for any and all nurses and midwives – to unlock talent and energy from across the health and care sector.
Whether you’re a seasoned expert or just starting your journey, this is your invitation to step into the world of research.
Professor Ruth Endacott is the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) director of nursing and midwifery, and an emeritus professor at Monash University, Melbourne