Workforce Development

Group Leader(s): Dr Catherine Henshall, Dr Clair Merriman

About us

The Workforce Development Research Group is co-Chaired by Dr Cathy Henshall and Dr Clair Merriman and was founded in 2021. The group’s aim is to build and develop an internationally recognised and vibrant research portfolio in the area of healthcare workforce development, with a focus on key funding priorities. This includes:

research in secondary, community based, social care and other out of hospital settings
a focus on health care staffing roles, skill mixes and training opportunities.

We are interested in exploring the best ways for staff to support patients who are living with long term conditions, as well as in examining ways to support the workforce to ensure it is resilient and engages with sustainable mechanisms for practice. We also engage with healthcare student bodies to actively involve them in research, as well as considering any ongoing changes to practice settings that may need evaluating or assessing.

Through the WDRG we promote and support a collaborative research culture. Membership includes early, mid and senior career researchers, as well as PhD and Masters students. We act as a forum for sharing and supporting practice developments that will inform current and future research activities, as well as knowledge exchange, innovation, teaching and policy.

Part of

Leadership

Dr Catherine Henshall

chenshall@brookes.ac.uk

Reader in Nursing Research

View profile

Dr Clair Merriman

cmerriman@brookes.ac.uk

Reader in Nursing, Midwifery and AHP Clinical Research-OxInAHR and Divisional Research Lead for NMAHPPS- Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust

View profile

Membership

Staff

Name	Role	Email
Dr Dan Butcher	Senior Lecturer - Course Lead Professional Doctorate in Nursing	dbutcher@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Jill Childs	Principal Lecturer for Social Work	jchilds@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Julie Cooke	Senior Lecturer and placement lead
Dr Zoe Davey	Research Fellow	zdavey@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Kathleen Greenway	Senior Lecturer	kgreenway@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Jennifer Kirman	Principal Lecturer (Student Experience)	jennifer.kirman@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Olga Kozlowska	Senior Lecturer in Research and Knowledge Exchange	okozlowska@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Mary Malone	Researcher	mmalone@brookes.ac.uk
Ms Sarah Neal	Deputy Head Practice Education and Senior Lecturer Adult Nursing	skhan@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Sue Schutz	Senior Lecturer	seschutz@brookes.ac.uk
Linda Shimumbi	Lecturer in Adult Nursing	lshimumbi@brookes.ac.uk
Mrs Lorraine Whatley	Senior Lecturer Simulation and Immersive Learning Technology	l.whatley@brookes.ac.uk

Students

Name	Thesis Title	Supervisors	Completed
Hilary Brown	Optimising the care and support for people with inoperable pancreatic cancer and their family-carers	Professor Eila Watson, Dr Lucy McGeagh	2023
Julie Cooke	Academic nurse educators’ experiences of preparing and supporting nursing students for clinical placements in nursing homes: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis	Dr Kathleen Greenway, Dr Sue Schutz	2022
Samantha Jane Donohue	What is the experince of professional enjoyment in nursing?		2022
Owen Gustafson	Evaluating the musculoskeletal health state of Intensive Care Unit survivors: The MSK-ICU study (led by OUH)	Dr Mark Williams, Professor Helen Dawes	Active
Lian Lee	Registered nurses' communication experiences in Robotic-Assisted Surgery	Dr Kathleen Greenway, Dr Sue Schutz	Active

Projects

Active projects

Active projects

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
COV-ed Nurse This UK wide study will use audio diaries and interviews to amplify and analyse the voices of student nurses in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as they describe clinical practice in the time of Covid-19.	Professor Mary Malone	ESRC	From: November 2020 Until: May 2022
Patient Safety in Critical Care COV-19 Registered Nurses’ Experiences and Perceptions of Patient Safety in Critical Care during Covid-19. This project seeks to explore the emergency changes to critical care capacity, delivery and staffing during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is critical that we evaluate the decisions made and strategies employed to learn and evolve our clinical practice.	Dr Clair Merriman, Dr Louise Stayt	Burdett Trust for Nursing	From: February 2021 Until: February 2022
Listen, Share, Hold, Respond A multi-site, participatory consultation project to understand the psycho-spiritual experiences and support needs of BAME NHS workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Concurrently, an evaluation and adaptation of existing psycho-spiritual supportive interventions (recovery and renewal days/webinars) provided by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (OHFT) and the Oxford Centre for Spirituality and Wellbeing (OCSW) to underpin development of a psycho-spiritual toolkit to meet the needs of NHS workers across the UK.	Dr Catherine Henshall	NHS England	From: April 2021 Until: April 2022
Resolution Resolution (Resilience enhancement online training for nurses in the COVID-19 environment: transitioning from face-to-face to online learning). The purpose of the study is to pilot a new online tool which aims to foster resilience to some of the clinical and workload pressures that nurses encounter on a daily basis.	Dr Catherine Henshall	Burdett Trust for Nursing	From: March 2021 Until: May 2022