Nursing and Midwifery Research

Professor Sally Hardy has undertaken research into nursing practice expertise and organisational transformation using practice development as a complex intervention to provide effective service delivery. Current research focuses on integrated care pathways, practice based service innovation in teenage cancer care and implications of public mental health policy and its impact on new ways of working.

Dinah Gould's area of research interest centres around clinical nursing and midwifery practice, especially within the domains of patient safety and the education and training of nurses and midwives to provide safe and effective care. Significant achievements have included updating a Cochrane review to explore the effectiveness of interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance and a systematic review exploring patient and public concerns about infection in hospital. This work has led to an international collaboration looking at nurses' clinical leadership and hand hygiene compliance. Since 2007 she has also undertaken a scoping study to investigate unsafe nursing practice and has evaluated the effectiveness of antiseptics to reduce bacterial carriage in pre-operative patients. Other projects include evaluating the cascade model as a means of educating practitioners, adherence to medication, management of patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy and the experiences of young people with inflammatory bowel disease.

Christine McCourt has an international research profile in maternal and infant health and is involved in a range of research projects with a high policy impact. Key academic interests are in: organisation and culture of health care; influences on health service quality and safety; institutionalism and change; maternal and infant health; infant feeding/nutrition; experiences of health service users and providers; participatory research. Her disciplinary background is in anthropology and her main area of research has been on maternity and women's health, with particular interests in institutions and service change and reform, on women's experiences of childbirth and maternity care and in the culture and organisation of maternity care. Recently completed projects include the large-scale Birthplace in England Programme, funded by the DH Policy Research Programme and the NIHR's SDO programme, to investigate quality and safety of different settings for birth. We have recently commenced a follow on project to look at organisational issues in the development of Alongside Midwife Units - midwife led birth centres based in hospitals. Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Health Services.

Professor Alan Simpson leads on mental health nursing research with a special focus on service user and carer involvement. Currently leading a trial of peer support for patients discharged from mental hospitals, he is also involved in a study of 'protected engagement time' (which aims to increase staff-patient contact time on acute inpatient wards), and an evaluation of 'preceptorship' amongst newly qualified mental health nurses. He has previously conducted research in community and inpatient mental health settings and led a number of innovative educational evaluations. Mental Health and Learning Disability.

Professor Cox's research activity is in the field of Advanced Clinical Practice associated with improving the patient experience. Research initiatives are targeted toward advancing professional knowledge and practice which is tempered with an understanding of the theoretical and epistemological bases of nursing. Approaches to research involve qualitative and quantitative domains. Recent research projects have focussed on patient involvement in the management of glaucoma, patient involvement in the development of PROMs in ophthalmic care, healthcare professional and patient involvement in cancer treatment and staff nurse involvement in developing advanced ophthalmic practice competencies. Professor Cox has been seconded to Moorfields' Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust since 2008 acting as the Trust's Nursing Research Lead. Students are encouraged to work with Professor Cox on research projects in order to enhance their understanding of research methodologies that will increase their expertise as future researchers. Applied Biological Sciences Research.

Julienne Meyer (registered nurse and qualified teacher) is Professor of Nursing and at City University London, Director of My Home Life programme (www.myhomelife.org.uk) and Co-Convenor of the National Care Homes Research & Development Forum. In addition, she is an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University in Australia, Visiting Professor at University of Wisconsin in USA, Co-Editor of Journal of Research in Nursing and Co-Editor of the Educational Action Research Journal. Over the last 15 years, she has developed a substantial portfolio of research and practice development in Care for Older People, undertaken within a wide range of health and social care settings. Subthemes to the work include: user and carer involvement; interprofessional working; organizational, workforce and practice development; role redesign and new ways of working; and value and contribution of nursing. She has an international reputation for expertise in aged care, qualitative research methods and changing practice through action research. Her work typically blurs the boundaries between education, practice and research and seeks to improve the quality of life for older people, and also, their carers (formal and informal). Care for Older People.

Professor Susan Procter is Professor of Primary Health Care Research in the School of Health Sciences at City University London. Her research focuses on patient experience of long term conditions, integrating care across the whole system of provision and the contribution nurses make to integrating care and managing patients with long term conditions. She has just completed an SDO study into the nursing contribution to chronic disease management using a whole systems perspective. Previously she has reviewed the developing role of the community children's nurse which focused on their role in caring for children with long term conditions and undertaken a whole system analysis of hospital patients with medical conditions at risk of repeat hospital admission and/or delayed discharge. She is particularly interested in developing understanding of the processes that support health and social care practitioners collectively to identify and focus on the primary concerns of the patient and carer in developing effective responsive services and to evaluate the impact on patient and carer experience, outcomes and demand.