International Nurses Day: 'Research nurses are the hidden gem of the NHS'

We know that patients who are cared for in hospitals that conduct research have better outcomes even if they don’t directly participate themselves. And while some might think of researchers in lab coats, removed from patient care, for Lorraine Hodsdon, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the key role they play in patients’ welfare as well as highlighting the huge importance and adaptability of the research nurse.

Lorraine, who is Head of Nursing and Patient Experience Research and Innovation at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for Children NHS Foundation Trust, has seen multiple examples of this throughout the pandemic.

Whether it was the redeployment of research staff, research colleagues training others in research, research nurses training to be vaccinators, or Lorraine herself adapting to working through Zoom as she shielded during surge 1 to protect her daughter, the pandemic has given rise to many opportunities to showcase the flexibility of the research nurse.

“Research nurses are the hidden gem of the NHS,” says Lorraine, who is passionate about research and innovation being core to care. She adds: “Research nurses have excellent clinical skills, good attention to detail and great leadership as well as numerous transferable skills – we can really make a difference advancing patient care”.  For those of you not familiar with the role of the clinical research nurse, they play a key role in a research delivery with an emphasis on  supporting patients through their treatment pathway as part of a clinical trial, dealing with data collection as well as helping develop new drugs ultimately improving patient care and treatment pathways.

“If you are delivering a COVID-19 vaccine clinic, for example, you are delivering a protocol similar to that for a research project. You are working with a drug which has an emergency licence, seeing different patients each time, and having complex consent discussions, so you have to have those transferrable skills.”

While Lorraine is a clear supporter of the skills of research nurses, she is quick to acknowledge that her clinical nursing grounding, in this case in paediatrics, has helped make her the nurse she is today.

“I qualified to be a nurse at Brighton Children’s Hospital before moving to London to work at the Royal Free, then the Royal London Hospital and St Mary's Hospital in Paddington,” she explains.

Lorraine got the research bug working with a research nurse on a meningitis B trial while she herself was an intensive care nurse. In 2006, the NIHR Medicines for Children Research Network (MCRN) was established and she joined as a senior research nurse, honing her research and leadership skills in the MAGNETIC trial into asthma in children’s A&E units. It was in the NIHR MCRN that Lorraine continued to develop her research career, covering the Network manager’s maternity leave, followed by holding a lead research nurse position - all alongside an MCRN workforce development lead post where she contributed to the development of a number of initiatives, including the NIHR Good Clinical Practice (GCP)  programmes and the paediatric consent modules.

At GOSH, Lorraine led on the operational delivery task force for the COVID-19 staff vaccination programme. She has also contributed to the North Central London Vaccine Delivery programme, working long days to help ensure that the operational side of the vaccine delivery programme at GOSH ran safely and effectively, as well as undertaking crucial work on minimising vaccine wastage.

Despite an incredibly busy and stressful year, she is still firmly of the view that research nursing is a highly attractive career choice.

“To those thinking about it, I would say make the jump,” she emphasises. “This is the first time that the public, are so largely aware of the benefits of the impact of research.

“I now have lots of non-medical friends asking me about my job and about vaccines, research has become such a big part of our discussions.

“The opportunity to be part of that as a research nurse, is really exciting.”