Health and care research shapes future education for NHS professionals

In 2022, Health Education England (now NHS England) started a comprehensive programme of work in response to the Kirkup and Ockenden reports on maternity services. This included a review of pre-registration midwifery education and training which highlighted learners’ feedback on their clinical experiences.

NHS England went on to contact academics from University of Cumbria’s Health and Society Knowledge Exchange (HASKE) commissioned research and evaluation unit to carry out a thematic analysis of the data collected through the review of midwifery training and the experiences of those newly qualified.

It involved analysing data from over 125 focus groups and 1,400 student and newly qualified midwives to provide recommendations on what good training looks like.

The specialist evaluation unit within the university’s respected Institute of Health, HASKE’s findings have fed into the new NHS England Safe Learning Environment Charter.

Aligning to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the Charter seeks to strengthen the workforce by advancing high-quality learning environments, reducing learner attrition, and improve the retention of newly qualified staff.

NHS England’s recent commission is one of the latest examples of the successful work carried out by HASKE, providing research-informed recommendations and results for partners working across the broad health, society and social care domains including NHS trusts, local authorities, governmental departments, European funders, community groups and third sector organisations.

HASKE is led by Professor Tom Grimwood, who is also head of University of Cumbria’s Graduate School supporting early career researchers on its range of postgraduate research degree programmes.

Tom’s talents celebrated

An author of several academic and fiction books, Tom is also a key member of the University of Cumbria team working with Cumberland Council to create a new centre of excellence in research into local health-related issues affecting people in north and west Cumbria.

The council is receiving £4.8m of investment from the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) to create the Cumberland Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC), with University of Cumbria as the primary academic partner.

Tom’s academic achievements and significant research contributions have been celebrated recently at a special event.

‘Crisis or Cliché? The Problem of Critique in the ‘Grey Zones’ of Delivering Care’ was the focus of his inaugural professorial lecture organised by the university after he was recently conferred with the title of Professor of Social Philosophy.

The lecture saw Tom discussing the relationship between ‘crisis’ and ‘critical thinking’ in contemporary care, drawing together examples from his extensive work on service evaluation of health and care delivery, with his reflections on the philosophy of interpretation in books such as Against Critical Thinking in Health, Social Care and Social Work (Routledge 2023), The Problem with Stupid: Ignorance, Intellectuals, Post-Truth and Resistance (Zer0 2023) and Key Debates in Social Work and Philosophy (Routledge, 2016).

Tom, pictured, said: “I think HASKE provides a distinctive conduit for a range of academic ideas to engage with the pressing demands and challenges of service delivery. Successful evaluation is all about creating a dialogue between the expertise of practitioners and academics across the university.

“University of Cumbria has provided a unique space for me to develop my work in philosophy in conjunction with health and care practitioners, and I was very pleased to be able to present some of these ideas in my inaugural professorial lecture.”

Above: Professor Tom Grimwood delivering his lecture at the University of Cumbria Lancaster campus

The third and final instalment in the inaugural lecture series will be led by Professor Amanda Taylor-Beswick, a professor of digital and social sciences and Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation at University of Cumbria.

VIDEO: Professor Tom Grimwood's lecture

ENDS