Jisha is a research nurse and team leader in a neurology department. She joined four years ago in her first research nurse post. One and a half years ago, she secured a promotion with a managerial element. Jisha trained to become a nurse in India 18 years ago, and worked in acute settings once she had moved to the UK. For personal reasons, she was keen to find a job to fit around childcare. She was drawn to the pattern and flexibility of the hours in research nursing.

When Jisha first started as a research nurse, she felt like a novice. She completed Good Clinical Practice training online. However, Jisha feels strongly that shadowing and hands-on practice are key to learning: you need to experience that, rather than just getting the theory. It took about six months to feel more comfortable and Jisha thinks it is important that new research nurses know this is a common experience. She finds there is poor retention of nurses new to research delivery roles and that many leave within a year but, in her experience, it takes about a year to feel settled. She thinks that a Trust-wide move to employ all research nurses as permanent staff has helped attract more applicants to research nurse posts and maybe with staff retention too.

Jisha describes the studies she has worked on as having grown in complexity since she first started the job. Some studies have required Jisha and the other research nurses to develop or acquire new skills, including being trained to use centrifuge equipment for studies with hourly bloods. The complexity of the studies can make it tricky to put all the arrangements in place, but Jisha feels it is important to make study participation as convenient as possible for the patients. This includes booking research appointments to dovetail with clinical appointments, and combining routine bloods with those required for the studies. Although Jisha knows research nurses from other departments, she thinks the types of studies they work on and challenges involved are quite different. For example, she and her team were part of a temporary weekend initiative to boost recruitment to a flu study; compared to the neurology studies she has worked on, she felt this was a very simple study. The studies in her area of neurology include phase I and II trials.

Jisha’s research team have daily meetings to plan their activities. They screen for patients in a number of ways including responding to beeper alerts and attending doctor handovers. For some studies, Jisha and the other research nurses can take consent from patients and/or their families. The timeframes can mean relatives give consent over the phone initially. Jisha encourages all of her research nurses to attend Site Initiation Visits, so they have some knowledge about the studies taking place and can help if other staff are on leave. Finding rooms to see participants can be difficult on the wards, but Jisha’s team have access to a research facility which they can also use.

Being a research nurse makes Jisha really proud and confident. She thinks clinical staff in her department now have quite a lot of respect for competent research nurses. Previously, there was an attitude amongst ward staff that research is extra work. Jisha has helped develop good relationships with ward staff, and highlights how important this is to the success of studies. For example, if clinical staff do not understand, they might make mistakes which affect the data or pose a risk to patients. Jisha doesn’t blame clinical staff who don’t know much about research nurses because she sees it as quite a recent development. Jisha thinks it helps when research is more visible for example, research nurses wear a uniform and patients enrolled in studies now have wristbands. She thinks having research nurses be an everyday presence on the wards also gives them a chance to check the studies are running smoothly.

Jisha thinks it is good to have experienced nurses come to research posts. She sees it as an advantage if they are also familiar with the clinical content of the studies in her case, neurology conditions and complications. Jisha has heard other research nurses worry about losing their clinical skills but she feels strongly that there are opportunities to maintain these: once that [clinical] skill is obtained, that is there. You just need to maybe do it in between. She thinks it is your decision about seeking out and taking up opportunities; one suggestion Jisha has is shadowing a phlebotomist for a day to keep up blood taking skills. In addition, many of the studies Jisha has worked on have involved using skills like collecting blood, doing ECGs and recording vital signs.

Jisha encourages new research nurses to persevere: In the beginning, everyone struggles but that is nothing to worry about. You may think you are slow, you are not getting the feel of this research, but gradually you will learn the process. She recommends shadowing experienced research nurses to see how they phrase information to appeal to the participant. In the future, Jisha would like to develop more research skills and has enquired about becoming a Principle Investigator for a new study. She knows of opportunities for research nurses in the US to become nurse researchers, but isn’t sure how this works in the UK context.