NHS England & NIHR Nursing and Midwifery. Promoting Visibility of Research by Appraisals
Date: 26 June 2023
During the recent NIHR and NHS England Nursing and Midwifery Summit in June 2022 to address solutions to the current challenges to progressing research careers for nurses and midwives, three main areas of work were prioritised. One of those areas is Culture, Environment and Leadership – Promoting the visibility of research via appraisals for all nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, healthcare scientists, pharmacists and psychologists (NMAHPPs).
Given the policy emphasis on increasing expectation across the NHS that research becomes every healthcare professionals’ business, embedded in clinical delivery, the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Midwifery Officer, NHS England and the NIHR wish to scope the potential and viability of using the annual appraisal process to provide a mechanism to improve the visibility of research and describe an employee’s contribution to the relevant Trust’s vision relating to research.
Across the health professions there is currently no job planning and linked appraisal process that makes the contribution to research identifiable and transparent. We are aware of a couple of pilots that have been implemented in Manchester and Imperial to include research knowledge and skills as part of all appraisals but they are the very few.
The Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Midwifery Officer, NHS England and the NIHR, would like to understand potential at national level and are gathering information from organisations and individuals to see how much research is profiled during appraisals for all healthcare professionals (not just those in research roles).
You are invited to respond to some questions via the survey: https://forms.office.com/e/zmwehEGLEJ