CARDINAL (Clinical Doctoral Nurses and Allied Health Professional) Network Launch

Photo of Lord Willis with four of the new CDFs (left to right): Sara Ma, Rebecca Hawthorn, Susan Guthrie, Lucy Hall

Our Hospital has been involved in the development of a pioneering collaboration that brings together NHS Trusts and Universities across the Yorkshire and Humber region. Working with the NIHR’s Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC), the network will improve inter-institutional working and the regions research capacity. This year a total of six CARDINAL nursing and allied health professional Clinical Doctoral Fellows (CDFs) have been recruited.

The first network meeting since the CDFs have come into post was attended by Lord Willis, who originally delivered the Report ‘Quality with compassion: the future of nursing education’ in 2012. A key conclusion was “Urgent action is needed to support the nursing academic workforce and guarantee its future quality: halt the decline in numbers, raise morale, and attract new staff.” (The Willis Commission, 2012). During his speech he commended the Trusts involved for leading the way in establishing joint clinical-academic development roles what will aid the delivery of patient-centred, high quality research.

Sara Ma, who has worked at York Teaching Hospitals since 2013 is our first CARDINAL Clinical Doctoral Fellow.  She has joined the Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Specialist Nurse team led by Lisa Rook and is being supervised for her PhD in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York, by Professor Martin Veysey (HYMS, the medical school) and Professor Steven Ersser (nursing), where she aims to examine and improve the care of IBD patients. Sara says, “The CARDINAL Doctoral Fellowship really appealed to me as it provides the opportunity to continue my clinical nursing career while developing my academic knowledge and research portfolio. My Fellowship also represents an exciting collaboration between the Department of Health Sciences and York and Hull Medical School in that I am being supervised and working alongside Professors in both of these departments”.