Interventions and strategies aimed at clinical academic pathway development for nurses in the United Kingdom: A systematised review of the literature

Abstract

Aims and objectives To review interventions and strategies designed to progress UK clinical academic career pathways in nursing and identify barriers and facilitators to aid wider implementation. Background For over a decade, the UK political agenda has promoted the entry of nurses into clinical academic roles. Partnerships between the National Health Service and academia are known to increase nursing recruitment, retention and quality of care. However, there remains a lack of nurses working in these partnership roles. Design A systematised review was conducted. An electronic database search was carried out in PubMed, CINAHL, the British Nursing Database and PsychInfo for articles published between September 2006 to June 2020. A narrative approach to data synthesis was used, and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses guidelines were followed. Results Ten papers were included in the review. The authors reported a range of programmes, pathways and toolkits. Pathway outcome measures included numbers of nurses recruited onto clinical academic programmes, clinical academic programmes completed, nursing research outputs, impact on clinical practice and impact on nursing recruitment. Barriers and facilitators to pathway development included funding, clinical and research time constraints, infrastructure, strong and strategic clinical academic leadership and effective partnership working. The quality of the included studies was mixed; more high‐quality, evidence‐based programmes need to be developed and rigorously evaluated. Conclusions The findings can inform nursing clinical academic research pathway development internationally, by identifying key drivers for success. Sustained and cohesive implementation of clinical academic research pathways is lacking across the UK. Relevance to Clinical Practice Strong, strategic leadership is required to enable progression of clinical academic nursing research pathway opportunities. Clinical nursing practitioners need to collaborate with external partners to enable development of clinical academic pathways within the nursing profession; this can lead to improvements in patient care and high‐quality clinical outcomes.

Exploring research capacity and culture of allied health professionals: a mixed methods evaluation

“…Several key elements are thought to underpin successful AHP RCB efforts. These include strong strategic leadership, effective partnerships between health and academic institutions, funded research career pathways, placing value on research and ensuring good support mechanisms for individual researchers [ 15 , 17 ].…”

Understanding the value of a PhD for post‐doctoral registered UK nurses: A survey

“…For instance, NMAHP progress compared to that of medics has been slow with fewer clinical academic career opportunities where research is routinely expected and undertaken as part of practice (Henshall et al, 2021). A bottle neck reflecting poor post-doctoral progress in career pathways has also been noted, particularly in nursing (Dickinson, 2017) Holland (van Oostveen et al, 2017) highlighted that there is an absence of supporting structures for nurses who combine clinical and academic work.…”

“…Advocates, such as Kitson (1999), have argued for doctorate level education to be developed in order to build a stronger culture of inquiry in clinical nursing practice. There has been an increase in the number of nurses undertaking doctorate level research in many countries including the Australia, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (Carrick‐Sen et al, 2019; Henshall et al, 2021; Wilkes et al, 2015). In the UK, the ‘Shape of Caring’ review reiterated these earlier messages and highlighted that nurses who are educated to doctoral level should form an integral part of the clinical workforce in order to generate a research culture in practice and provide the foundation architecture to make the necessary change (Health Education England, 2015).…”

“…Despite these developments, there is some evidence that this increase in training opportunities has not been matched by parallel developments of infrastructure in the clinical and practice context. For instance, NMAHP progress compared to that of medics has been slow with fewer clinical academic career opportunities where research is routinely expected and undertaken as part of practice (Henshall et al, 2021). A bottle neck reflecting poor post‐doctoral progress in career pathways has also been noted, particularly in nursing (Dickinson, 2017).…”

A Survey of Resources and Nursing Workforce for Clinical Research Delivery in Paediatric Intensive Care Within the UK / Ireland

“…This situation is consistent with the national picture in the UK. Despite a national drive to increase the number of Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals in clinical academic positions by 2030 ( 43 ), this situation has been slow to change and there is a lack of sustained and cohesive implementation of clinical academic research pathways ( 44 , 45 ).…”