L. Newington1, C.M. Alexander2, M. Wells3
1Imperial College London, MSk Lab, Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, London, United Kingdom, 2Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Therapies, Physiotherapy, London, United Kingdom, 3Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Nursing, London, United Kingdom
Background: It is widely acknowledged that healthcare organisations that engage in clinical research have better outcomes than their non–research-active counterparts. The traditional focus has been on medic-led research, however recent funding initiatives provide support for physiotherapists and other non-medical healthcare professionals to develop and run their own programmes of research alongside their clinical practice.
Purpose: To evaluate the impact of clinical academic activity among non-medical clinicians within a large NHS hospital group. The views of managers and research-active clinicians were explored. Clinical academic activity was defined as dedicated time for clinical research alongside clinical duties; impact was not pre-defined.
Methods: Governance approval for the service evaluation was granted by the hospital group (ref 2019/418). Managers and research-active clinicians were recruited using a purposive sampling strategy incorporating the following characteristics: clinical discipline; clinical specialty; hospital site; clinical grade and academic level. One-to-one semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted by the lead author using a pre-piloting interview guide. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were analysed by the research team using the Framework method. Nascent themes and subthemes were refined through discussion with participants and the postgraduate clinical academic research group.
Results: Twelve clinical academics and eight managers were interviewed, representing nine clinical disciplines: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dietetics, nursing, midwifery, radiography, pharmacy and healthcare science.
Five key themes were identified: (i) what is a clinical academic; (ii) visibility; (iii) impact of the clinical academic pathway; (iv) positive cultural changes; and (v) measuring impact. The first theme described clinical academics as having a tripartite role of research, clinical practice and education. The second theme focused on the discrepancy between the positive national and international reputation of research-active clinicians within their clinical area, and a lack of acknowledgement of their expertise across the hospital group. The third theme centred on the transiency of current clinical academic roles and the uncertainty that this brings to research-active clinicians and their managers. The fourth theme encompassed the perceived benefits that research-active clinicians bring to the local research culture and patient care. The final theme explored the difficulty of capturing and reporting the impacts of clinical academic activity.
Interestingly managers and clinicians reported similar views of the impacts of these roles.
Five key themes were identified: (i) what is a clinical academic; (ii) visibility; (iii) impact of the clinical academic pathway; (iv) positive cultural changes; and (v) measuring impact. The first theme described clinical academics as having a tripartite role of research, clinical practice and education. The second theme focused on the discrepancy between the positive national and international reputation of research-active clinicians within their clinical area, and a lack of acknowledgement of their expertise across the hospital group. The third theme centred on the transiency of current clinical academic roles and the uncertainty that this brings to research-active clinicians and their managers. The fourth theme encompassed the perceived benefits that research-active clinicians bring to the local research culture and patient care. The final theme explored the difficulty of capturing and reporting the impacts of clinical academic activity.
Interestingly managers and clinicians reported similar views of the impacts of these roles.
Conclusion(s): Involvement in clinical academic activity was perceived to have positive impacts on clinical services and this was not limited to the direct outcome of their research projects. However, there were uncertainties for both research-active clinicians and managers about incorporating research activities within the current career framework for clinical roles. There was a perception that the clinical academic pathways for medics were better established, but these might not be the optimal templates for non-medical professions, including physiotherapy, due to the different structure of non-medical training and clinical roles.
Implications: An agreed method of capturing and reporting the impact of clinical academic activity among physiotherapists and other non-medical professions is needed to further aid the development, integration and support of clinical academic roles within these professions.
Funding, acknowledgements: Lisa Newington is supported by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
Keywords: Clinical academic, Healthcare research, Practice-based research
Topic: Service delivery/emerging roles
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Committee: Therapies Quality and Safety Committee
Reason: This was a service evaluation and was registered and approved by the Trust audit/service evaluation committee (ref 2019/418)
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
