Chief Investigator: Professor Kerry Gaskin, Birmingham City University

Start Date: 1st October 2024

End Date: 31st March 2026

Summary

Research is important for clinicians to improve treatments and care in the NHS. It is fundamental to what is called advanced practice.

In 2023 the Advanced Practitioner Research Toolkit was developed for one NHS trust to help plan research activity. This novel toolkit, developed to meet the needs of advanced practitioners in one organisation, has gained interest nationally and internationally, with many positive comments received about how simple it is to use. We are currently designing a national evaluation to ascertain how the toolkit has been implemented and the impact it has had for advanced practitioners.

It has the potential to improve research and engage more clinicians in research, leading to evidence based service improvement in the NHS.

Anecdotally this pillar is perceived as being more difficult to achieve within the AP role due to a variety of barriers, including operational priorities, lack of time and lack of support. A common theme arising from communication with APs at GHNHSFT was ‘not knowing how or where to get started’, which informed development of the toolkit. The objectives of the APRT were to support APs to 'get started' with the research pillar; to encourage AP teams to consider their research priorities; to enable individual and team research objective setting and to aid appraisal discussions.

The aim of this project is to improve Advanced Practitioners’ (AP) research capabilities, thereby enabling APs to achieve the research pillar of their role

Objectives:

·         to develop a tailored strategy to implement the APRT

·         to test this implementation strategy in the context of healthcare organisations

·         to evaluate the acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility of the APRT

·         to evaluate the impact of using the APRT for APs, AP Teams, Supervisors and Line-Managers

·         to report the findings and recommendations to inform future roll out across the NHS

Development and Implementation of An Advanced Practice Research Toolkit - Birmingham City University