27. A pragamatic governance framework for differentaiting between research, audit and practice development (391)
Kate Gerrish, Professor of Nursing, Centre for Health and Social Care Research, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom
Co authors: Irene Mabbott, Sam Debbage, Susan Mawson & Jean Schofield.
k.gerrish@shu.ac.uk
Abstract:
Healthcare professionals have to comply with increasingly complex ethical, legal, clinical and research governance requirements surrounding data collection activity. However, not all data collection should be defined and managed as research. Clinical audit, practice development and service evaluation activities frequently involve collecting data from patients or staff. There are a number of grey areas where it may be difficult to distinguish between research and other data collection activities. Trusts may decide to treat grey areas as research to ensure that all research activity is managed appropriately and that the organization is not exposed to external investigation/litigation. However, this stance results in an unnecessary management burden/cost to the R&D Department. Additionally, there is a risk that unnecessary administrative burdens on practitioners will serve to stifle innovation. Indeed putting obstacles in the way of ‘quality improvement projects’ may lead to poor practice and reduction in service developments. This poster will present educational toolkit developed at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to help staff differentiate between research, clinical audit, practice development and service evaluation activities enabling the proposed data collection activity to be correctly categorised.
The Toolkit contains:
-Set of Simple Rules that identifies the proposed activity type
-Series of Rule-in questions used to confirm activity type
-Referral routes to seek advice for ‘grey area cases’ when unable to provide a clear categorization between activities
-Set of ethical principles applicable to practice development / service evaluation
-Advice on how all proposed changes to practice must consider their clinical impact and are set in the context of risk to patients
The ‘Toolkit’ has enabled the Trust to reduce the risk of contravening research governance and local clinical governance requirements whilst still encouraging quality improvement projects. Local universities are using it on postgraduate programmes to facilitate student involvement in projects to improve patient care.
Recommended reading list:
• Department of Health (2005) Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care; 2nd Edition, London, Department of Health
• Gerrish K, Mawson S, (2005) Research, audit and Practice development: implications for research and clinical governance. Practice Development in Health Care; 4:1: 33-39
Source of Funding: N/A
Amount in Funding: N/A
Biography:
Kate Gerrish holds a joint post between Centre for Health and Social Care Research, Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as Professor of Nursing. Kate’s role in both organisations is to support nursing research and practice development. Kate has held a variety of clinical posts in acute and community nursing in both the UK and Zambia. She also has extensive experience of nurse education having worked in both pre and post registration and nurse teacher preparation. Her main research interests are in the areas of nursing development, transcultural nursing and nurse education and she has published widely in each of these areas.