Occupational Therapy News OTnews November 2019 | Page 36

REPORT RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
R
Aspiring
to a clinical
academic
career
esearch is a vital part of our profession. It helps us choose
and justify interventions, promotes new practice and new
ways of thinking, and can be a part of keeping us in love with
occupational therapy.
My personal interest in research has been growing gradually, pulling
together strands of my professional interests and frustrations. Starting
a new job in Worcester, a beautiful city home to a university with an
occupational therapy department, prompted me to question why none of
my clinical roles have included contact with the academic world.
I have also contemplated the dearth of high quality intervention research
in mental health occupational therapy, and dabbled in investigating current
understanding of specific clinical phenomena.
The common theme within these has been my lack of knowing how to
start getting involved, so when I heard about a workshop hosted by the
Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT) and the National Institute
of Health Research (NIHR) in Birmingham I jumped at the chance to go.
Twenty-four occupational therapists attended the workshop, all of whom
had a shared interest in research. Some were more experienced, with
Kate Tudor reports from a
workshop hosted by RCOT and
the National Institute of Health
Research
36 OTnews November 2019
projects and publications under their belt, some were in the early stages
of their research careers and others, myself included, were taking their
first steps towards a research-oriented career, keen to understand how to
make this happen.
The day was led by NIHR occupational therapy advocates, Professor
Pip Logan, Professor of Rehabilitation Research, University of Nottingham,
and Professor Tina Jerosch-Herold, professor of Rehabilitation Research,
University of East Anglia, and was hosted by Dr Gillian Ward, RCOT
research and development manager.
They had designed a day combining sessions on developing our
understanding of the research landscape in health and social care, with
practical sessions on identifying our own research skills and next steps.
Clinical practice and research have a synergistic relationship. Well
executed research guides and shapes clinical practice; meanwhile clinician
involvement in research ensures its alignment to current clinical practices
and concerns.
Further, a research-active care environment has been demonstrated to
positively influence patient outcomes. Crucially, it is not only the patients
directly involved in the research who benefit, patient experience is improved
for all and there is improvement in staff retention (Harding et al 2016;
Downing et al 2017; Jonker, Fisher and Dagnan 2019).
The importance of research is enshrined in the NHS Constitution
(Department of Health and Social Care 2015) and the NHS Long Term
Plan includes a commitment to registering one million participants in health
research by 2023-24 (NHS England 2019).
During the workshop we were encouraged to regard research as part of
the core activities of NHS organisations.
The NIHR is one of the largest funders of health and care research
in the UK. Its goal is to create a health research system in which the
NHS supports outstanding individuals, working in world-class facilities,
conducting leading-edge research focused on the needs of patients and
the public.
This can sound a little daunting. However, the NIHR is interested
in helping a wide range of people, from experienced research-active
individuals, new recruits to the profession, and those more clinically