Cohort 4 - New Interns and their Backgrounds!

As with every Intership we have at CLAHRC GM we have a range of people with a varity of skills and backgrounds. With the new Cohort this is no different!

Meet our new Interns:

• Elaine Chesworth -  Innovation Adoption Manager, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust: As the Innovation Adoption Manager at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, I am responsible for supporting the pull through of health technology innovation into the organisation to deliver the proven benefits to patients. There are many barriers to adoption and spread of innovation, but evidence shows that having a clear pathway for adoption and completing evaluations to demonstrate the potential impact of the health technology, can support the adoption and spread of innovation. My focus of the internships is to look at the evidence for using evaluation frameworks to support the translation of health technology research into practice. 

• Alison Dawber -  Community Mental Health Nurse, Recovery and Inclusion Hub, East Community Mental Health Team:  I qualified in Mental Health Nursing in 2016. I started my nursing career on a 21 bed female acute ward; where I worked for 15 months. In December 2017 I moved to a Community Mental Health Team with a particular focus on recovery and inclusion. I have a passion for improving the quality of my services users lives. I fervently believe that mental health services need to get better at removing the barriers to discharge for as many people as possible, thus increasing capacity for those who require our support. I believe that research is a tool to start conversations and a conduit to support progress and change within health services. Mental health services have seen wholesale change over the last few decades and whilst there has been a drive towards increased research and innovation there is still a long way to go. I have a particular interest in how community mental health teams undertake discharge planning and removing these barriers to discharge, their internal processes and clinicians understanding and confidence in this practice. As a clinician I am acutely aware of the importance of getting this right as a failure to discharge plan appropriately can result in servicer users’ continued dependence on services; an outcome and demand that secondary care mental health services are increasingly unable to meet.

• Chapala Dey -  Nurse Endoscopist, Endoscopy Unit, MRI, Oxford Road:  My background is that of general adult nursing. I have been working in Endoscopy for two and half years. Having attended the BSG conference last year and hearing people present there research, I found myself considering going into research in the future as there are lots of questions we don't have the answer to for lower GI diseases. The CLAHRC internship is hopefully going to help me understand the research process and do some networking.
  My project relates to the three sites, TGH, MRI and UHSM. I want to look at how quality is measured with regards to colonoscopies and what if any differences there are between the sites.

• Keri Furniss -  Consultant Nurse, Older People and Frailty, Trafford General Hospital, Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (MFT):  I have been in post as a Nurse Consultant in Elderly care for 15 months. I am extremely passionate about my role and the impact it can have for patient care. I am at the beginning of my research pathway, which is exciting to further develop my knowledge and skills in research. Which in turn aligns with the Trusts focus on research. My passion and what I want to explore through research is looking at the impact of social isolation in the elderly, how this effects health and outcomes. I also want to persue research looking at potential intervention strategies that could benefit this group to reduce the negative effects of social isolation.

• Sarah Montrose -  Assistant Psychologist, Neurorehab, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust:  Graduated in 2012 with a BSc in Psychology. Started working in Neurorehab 2015 and have since worked in different Neurorehab settings. Currently working as an Assistant Psychologist in Neurorehab as part of the Salford Neuropsychology department. My main interests are how best to assess and support mood post stroke and my focus with CLAHRC is to explore the evidence on psychological interventions in post stroke depression and anxiety.

• Victoria Ozkan -  Specialist Paediatric IV therapy Practitioner, RMCH:  My interest in Clinical and Academic Nursing Research stems from my nursing experience so far and my desire to constantly strive to improve the service that we as nurses provide for our patients. I have worked in Paediatric Critical Care Nursing, Clinical Research Nursing and my currently role is that of a Specialist Paediatric IV Therapy Practitioner. I still maintain my interest in research and am a member of the Research Champion Group in RMCH whose objectives are to promote nursing and allied health carers research and audit throughout RMCH. Part of my nursing role is the education of nursing staff in relation to IV Therapy practice and also Policy writing. I therefore feel it essential to keep up with current research and evidence based practice in this area. At the beginning of 2018 I completed a Clinical Audit on Central Venous Catheter Care (CVC) which highlighted some discrepancies between what is practiced on the wards with regards CVC care and the information being taught on the IV study days. Also practice was different to the CVC policy guidelines. In order to address this discrepancy I wanted to explore the evidence behind the taught practice guidelines and the practice done by the nursing staff on the wards. I therefore had the beginnings of my research question and in my quest to help answer it I applied for the research internship program. I see the internship as an ideal opportunity to gain access to the necessary expertise, skills, and resources to explore the main issue which arouse from the audit - ‘Where should the CVC safety loop go?’ And, does this affect the health and longevity of the CVC? I hope that this initial exploration during the internship program will be a platform to further clinical and academic nursing research and study.

• Sarah Shipton - Advanced Nurse Practitioner in Supportive and Palliative Care working at the Manchester Foundation Trust:  I have recently been involved in a research project in collaboration with Manchester University and the CSNAT discharge study. I also attended last years MFT research conference and became inspired to gain some research skills after listening to the presentation of a previous intern. My organisation is very committed to  embedding research into clinical practice and felt that I would like to gain more research skills, inform practice and improve patient and carer outcomes. I decided to apply for the Internship as a way to explore my research skills with the support from CLAHRC GM and Manchester University. I am interested in improving access to supportive and palliative care for non malignant patient's specifically COPD patients to improve patient outcomes and quality of life.

Date Published: 28/02/2019