About the Project
The Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southampton, working in partnership with University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, is offering a Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship for a qualified nurse, funded by the Alzheimer’s Society.
The studentship is one of five new studentships provided by the newly established Doctoral Training Centre in Dementia Care (DTC-DC) within the Faculty of Health Sciences. The DTC-DC is funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and the overarching aim of the Centre is to advance, utilise, and communicate scientific knowledge about patient safety and risk enablement to empower people with dementia.
The aim of this studentship is to explore staff behaviours and approaches to risk profiling in response to in-patients with dementia who want to walk, using mixed methods. Our NHS partners have already told us this will be helpful, especially in terms of falls prevention strategies and practices.
In particular, the studentship seeks to address the following research question: How is patient safety and positive risk taking promoted in acute care settings?
Design and settings
This study will involve use of mixed research methods, sampling people with dementia in contact with acute services, and any family or friend caregivers.
Non-participant observation of caregiving and team interactions will be used to build an in-depth picture of current practices that respond to people with dementia who want to walk. These findings will be supplemented by qualitative interviews with staff, people with dementia and family or friend caregivers to explore their attitudes to risk taking and views on current practices, and an analysis of patient records with regard to risk assessment and decision making.
Outcomes: Completion of theoretical framework for the main research question(s), study design and measurements; draft for publication of literature review; draft for publication of results; submission of thesis; plans for communicating research findings.
Key milestones:
• Up to 12 months: Review of literature, gain ethics and governance approvals, achieve milestone 1.
• Up to 24 months: Recruit participants; begin fieldwork; achieve milestone 2
• Up to 36 months: Complete fieldwork, achieve milestone 3 and upgrade document.
• Up to 48 months: Analysis, write up, and communicate findings
The successful candidate will spend two days per week as a Band 5 Registered Nurse in the Older Person’s Clinical Service, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and 3 days per week working on the PhD research study. You will join a thriving and expanding group of Clinical Doctoral Research Fellows using the purpose built Clinical Academic Facilities at Southampton General Hospital and Queen Alexandra Hospital (QAH), Portsmouth. You will work clinically in the Older Person’s Clinical Service based at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.
You will become part of the newly formed Ageing and Dementia Research cluster group, which offers research seminars, peer support, and an intellectually stimulating environment in which to develop your ideas and foster sustainable networks and working relations.
This is an exciting opportunity and will enable aspiring individuals to combine clinical practice with a research role, working across the University and the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. The successful candidate will work with their nominated clinical mentor and academic supervisors to develop their clinical academic role in both practice and university settings.
Our DTC-DC team
Dr Ruth Bartlett is the lead with Professor Ann Bowling, and other members of the supervisory team, including Professor Julia-Addington Hall, Dr Jackie Bridges, Dr Sue Green, Dr Rosalind Willis (Centre for Research on Ageing), Dr Rebekah Luff (National Centre for Research Methods).
The DTC-DC team is supported by Dr Maggie-Donovan Hall (PhD Programme Lead), Dr Greta Westwood (Clinical Academic Coordinator) and several experienced clinicians based within Southern Healthcare Trust, Portsmouth Trust, and the University Hospitals Trust.
Funding Notes
The Fellowship is for 4 years will begin in September 2015. You will be supported by an annual £15,000 stipend and an additional annual sum of £1000 to support additional training and development costs during the Fellowship. Your university fees will be paid and you will be provided with a generous individual budget for consumables, patient and public involvement (PPI) and research communication activities.
References
We are seeking a motivated enthusiastic nurse, committed to patient focused and evidence based care to work within the Older Person’s Clinical Service. It is essential that you have successfully achieved a 2:1 honours degree or higher, or a in a health or social care related subject.
Additional eligibility criteria:
To apply for this fellowship you must be:
• a nurse registered with the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council.
• Be able to provide at least one satisfactory reference (on some occasions a second reference will be required).
• Candidates whose first language is not English are also required to reach a satisfactory standard in an approved test in English. See website for details of minimum requirements.
• Candidates from outside the UK and Europe may apply for these studentships but will required to make up the shortfall in tuition fees.
Application process:
Please apply to http://www.southampton.ac.uk/healthsciences/postgraduate/research_degrees/apply.page with a CV and an outline research proposal by 12th April 2015 and state the name of the project(s) you are applying for. Please also complete an expression of clinical interest form to identify your preferred areas of clinical work
Interviews will be held on 5 May 2015.