Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust

Name of Contact: Sharon Hamilton
Phone: 020 8296 2870
E-mail: Sharon.hamilton@epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk

Description of Trust

e.g geography, type of trust, nursing WTE etc

Epsom and St. Helier – formed from the merger of two district general hospitals and associated cottage hospitals. St. Helier hospital is located on the edge of south London, while Epsom hospital is located approximately 10 miles away in Surrey. The Trust has approximately 900 beds and 1,800 nurses.

St. George’s hospital is a large London teaching hospital in Tooting south London with a medical school and faculty of health and social care sciences on campus. It has approximately 900 beds and 1,500 nurses

Infrastructure to support R&D

Include here any reference to R&D strategy and HEI links / joint appointments, career pathways, IT access, research support networks, evaluation / outcomes etc

Each Trust and the University have active R&D committees, each of which have senior nurse members. The Head of Nursing Research is a member of the Sutton/ Merton/ Epsom/ Kingston and Richmond ethics committee.

In 1997, St. Helier hospital appointed a senior lecturer in nursing research in collaboration with Kingston University to undertake a PhD and lead nursing research. The R&D committee funded the post following a competitive bidding process.

In 2002, Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust/St. George’s Healthcare NHS Trust and the Joint Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences have collaboratively appointed a Head of Nursing Research to develop the infrastructure across the organisations to support nursing research. The Head of Nursing Research chairs a Joint Nursing and Midwifery Research Development Group which has 22 members across the organisations and the PCTs. Members include all nurse consultants and clinical nurses specialist actively involved in leading their own research. Each member of the group is responsible for leading and developing research in their area and reports back to the group. The longer term aim of this group is to expand to become a nursing research network across south west London.

St. George’s Health Care NHS Trust have appointed a part-time senior nurses (R&D) to support the work of the Head of Nursing Research

The Head of Nursing Research will be publishing a nursing research strategy

The Head of Nursing Research leads a Priorities and Needs programme of research in nursing interventions.

Infrastructure such as Dictaphones, transcription machines and SPSSpc have been purchased for the specific use of nurses in their research.

Examples of clinically based research and development projects / activity that have made a difference to patients experience / outcomes

Include here for example projects, conferences etc.

Hamilton, S. The management of change: An evaluation of the use of a multifaceted strategy to implement best practice in stroke assessment. PhD study, research based at St. Helier hospital. Improved the completeness of the nursing assessment from 9% pre implementation of guidelines to 74% post implementation.

Brooks, W., Whittet, A. An evaluation of a moving and handling teaching programme for nurses on a stroke unit. Study to improve the moving and handling skills of all nurses (including HCAs) on a stroke unit. Outcomes being evaluated.

Farnell, S. A Study to Compare the Accuracy and Reliability of Non-invasive Methods of Measuring Temperature in Critically ill Adults. Study based in ITU at St. George’s hospital.

Dawson, D., Farnell, S. A study to explore nurses’ experiences during their first six months of working in critical care.

A number of research secondment opportunities are available for nurses at the Trusts. An E grade nurse from the stroke unit is currently on secondment to undertake data collection in a research project. An H grade nurse is taking up a secondment with the University.

The Head of Nursing Research is collaborating on research projects with colleagues internal and external to the organisations. For example a project is underway to describe convention physiotherapy in stroke rehabilitation with the Professor of Rehabilitation at St. George’s medial school.

All members of the Joint Nursing and Midwifery Research Development Group are encourage to submit abstracts of their research for conferences, particularly the RCN research society conference.