Abstract
Nurse-led research and innovation is key to improving health experiences and outcomes and reducing health inequalities. Clinical academic training programmes for nurses to develop research and innovation skills alongside continued development of their clinical practice are becoming increasingly established at national, regional and local levels. Though widely supported, geographical variation in the range and scope of opportunities available remains. It is imperative that clinical academic opportunities for nurses continue to grow to ensure equity of access and opportunity so that the potential of nurse-led clinical academic research to improve quality of care, health experience and health outcomes can be realised. In this paper, we describe and report on clinical academic internship opportunities available to nurses to share internationally, a range of innovative programmes currently in operation across the UK. Examples of some of the tangible benefits for patients, professional development, clinical teams and NHS organisations resulting from these clinical academic internships are illustrated. Information from local evaluations of internship programmes was collated to report what has worked well alongside 'real-world' set-up and sustainability challenges faced in practice. Clinical academic internship schemes are often opportunistically developed, making use of hybrid models of delivery and funding responsive to local needs and available resources. Key enablers of successful clinical academic internship programmes for nurses were support from senior clinical leaders and established relationships with local universities and wider organisations committed to research capacity building.
Highlights
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTIONThe term clinical academic is used to describe a healthcare professional who combines research and clinical practice (Baltruks & Callaghan, 2018)
Clinical academic internships are pivotal for nurses who wish to pursue a clinical academic career and for those keen to take a first step into the research and innovation world
The clinical academic research from the internship programmes show-cased here has directly contributed to improving quality of care, health experience and health outcomes
Summary
The term clinical academic is used to describe a healthcare professional who combines research and clinical practice (Baltruks & Callaghan, 2018). Hosted by the University of Central Lancashire, these master's degree level accredited programmes supported 42 healthcare professionals, representing 5 NHS Hospital Trusts enabling practitioners to experience a research role whilst optimising their clinical expertise Building on these programmes, the capacity building theme for NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care North West Coast (CLAHRC NWC) supported clinical academic internships from February 2015 to September 2019 (Khan et al, 2020). A Band 6 clinical nurse based within acute medicine at Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust joined the Clinical Improvement Scholarship programme with no previous experience or knowledge of research and clinical academic roles Following completion of her first degree in Nursing, she had been working full time in clinical practice for several years demonstrating a real passion for improving care for patients and supporting staff mental health and well-being. Formal progress monitoring and support mechanisms, informal opportunities, such as lunch or coffee break catch-ups, enable peer-to-peer clinical academic support networks to develop across the institution
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
