Mersey Care is holding a quarterly series of nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals (AHPs) research and innovation forums. The forums highlight current research projects being undertaken by Mersey Care clinicians and also provide advice to staff who are interested in starting a research journey.
The last forum, which took place on 25 February at The Village Hotel in Whiston, was led by Dr Krystina Stanway and Dr Oladayo Bifarin.
In his presentation, Dr Oladayo Bifarin explored the importance of building research capacity in the Trust and supporting under-represented disciplines. He highlighted resources to assist research initiatives, such as our partnership with NHS Research and Development North West (NHS R&D NW). This partnership involves empowering staff to engage with research activities by providing mentorship and training, promoting research leadership and co-creating a plan to embed research activities within clinical practice.
One of the Mersey Care clinicians delivering a presentation on their research journey was Linda Cantwell, an Advanced Practitioner Dietitian. Linda recently started an NIHR Doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (DCAF) to research nutritional prehabilitation intervention in head and neck cancer patients. She emphasised the importance of keeping an eye on trust communications such as the ‘Your Week’ newsletter which highlights research opportunities.
Catherine Witter, Advanced Clinical Pharmacist, also explained how undergoing an internship with Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast (ARC NWC) enabled her to get started on her research project on neonatal adaptation syndrome (NAS).
Feedback from attendees included:
“I really appreciated the opportunity to spend time with other Mersey Care staff and guests, exploring research and innovation. As a social worker I have often felt a little in the dark when it comes to research and development, attending yesterday gave me encouragement and motivation to get stuck in on my research. I loved being able to network with others and bounce off ideas, listening to the journey from staff was inspiring and I now feel that dark room is a lot brighter.”
James McCully, Forensic Social Worker.
“The research forum was fantastic to help me decide on where I want to start in my research journey. It was great to hear from different practitioners who are already on their research journey and what steps they took to get to where they are now.”
Chiara Berry, Senior Nurse Practitioner.
Find out more
If you would like to attend the next forum in May, please send a brief email expressing your interest to Dr Oladayo Bifarin (oladayo
