St Giles Hospice Nurses Complete National Research Programme

Two nurses at St Giles Hospice have completed a competitive national research programme, rounding off a year that saw one of them upgraded from the entry-level scheme to a more advanced research internship.

Samantha Doody, Clinical Nurse Specialist (Prescriber) in the Community team, and Ruth Abell, Inpatient Unit Sister, were among the first cohort of nurses selected for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Researcher Development Programme for Social Care Nurses.

Samantha’s application was strong enough that assessors upgraded her from the entry-level Champions programme to the more advanced Research Internship, in recognition of her commitment to research in palliative care.

The year-long placement gave both nurses one day a week to develop their research skills, with formal training, mentorship and access to learning materials through the University of Liverpool. It also gave St Giles Hospice two days a week of dedicated research nursing activity, at a time when many hospices nationally have had to cut research posts because of financial pressures.

Samantha’s project was a service evaluation exploring hospice staff knowledge, confidence and educational needs in caring for patients with motor neurone disease. She received 22 responses from staff across the hospice, and the findings identified opportunities for further education and development.

Samantha said: “I’m proud to have completed this internship, and still can’t quite believe I was upgraded to the Research Internship programme when I applied. Working with our MND patients, I could see there were gaps in staff confidence and knowledge, so I used my project to explore that properly. I started the year wanting to understand research, and I’m finishing it wanting research to stay part of my career.”

Ruth’s project looked at the impact of palliative symptom-management education on clinicians’ confidence and knowledge in providing comfort and dignity in wound management at the end of life.

Ruth said: “This internship has given me the confidence to turn clinical curiosity into research, and research into real improvements in patient care. My project looked at wound management at the end of life, and it reinforced for me that our goal isn’t always healing a wound, sometimes it’s about comfort, dignity and quality of life. Presenting my findings as a research poster and hearing from other healthcare professionals was one of the proudest moments of the year.”

Highlights of the year included attending the Voices of Care parliamentary reception at the House of Lords. Ruth also took on the role of Internship group lead, sitting on the NIHR steering committee to help shape the programme for the next cohort of interns.

Both nurses say the experience has changed their career plans. Ruth has applied for a Masters in Research at Birmingham University and has been offered a role as a Specialist Research Nurse within St Giles. Samantha said the internship has already opened up conversations about further research opportunities at the hospice.

Cara Bailey, Professor of End of Life Care at St Giles Hospice and University of Birmingham, said: “We are incredibly proud of both Sam and Ruth. Completing this programme, in its inaugural year, is a real achievement for them individually and for St Giles Hospice. Their projects show exactly why nurses need to be part of research, they’re the ones who see where care can be improved and ask the right questions. This is another important step in our ambition to become a centre of excellence for hospice research.”

The completion of the internship supports St Giles Hospice’s ambition to become an official university hospice, joining just four other hospices in the UK with this status, positioning St Giles as a leading centre for hospice research in the West Midlands.