Name and role

Nichola Verstraelen

Clinical Team Lead Research Matron – Lancashire Teaching Hospitals

National Institute for Health Research NIHR 70@70 Nurse, enabling research to be at the core of the NHS

On a typical day…

On a typical day I would be looking through a clinical drug trial protocol and assessing if it is safe to run in our research facility. I would already know that it has been ethically approved by a lay research group. I consider what we need to do to prepare, for example, do our nurses have the right skills to give intravenous medications or do neurological or special types of observations on patients with all sorts of different diseases? I then might be doing an audit in the research facility looking at whether nurses and staff are following infection control standards, educating staff around risk assessments, emergency preparedness, supporting the nurses with patient visits or recruiting patients in clinics.

One way I’ve made a difference as a nurse or midwife

I feel privileged to be a clinical research nurse as I am able to give patients time and specialist expertise. I came into nursing to care. What I value most as a research nurse is being able to offer patients extra psychological care. Clinical teams are so stretched for time and our research nurses are there as an extra level of support to patients on all levels. Although we become specialist nurses in the field we are working in, we can offer help and support in many different areas. In fact, being on a study opens doors for patients to access a whole raft of specialists who are there to protect and ensure safety for them. I have made a difference to patients by signposting to the right support services, picking up missed appointments that have occurred from the clinical side, identified new conditions which the patient may never have known about if they were not on a study, been a listening ear to families of the patients that have been going through trauma. In fact, patients become part of our research family, we get to know them so much and having access to us on the phone gives people support and reassurance that they have a life line. These are all the positive side effects of being on a study. I absolutely love my job as I can deliver good care to patients.

I am also privileged to be standing up for the rights of patients in order to be given opportunities to take part in research. I am one of only 70 nurses and midwives in the country delivering a programme of work to enable research to be part of the central core of the NHS. We need patients to be given these opportunities to open the door to more health boosting potential and ultimately cures and better treatments. I am honoured to be part of world leading cutting edge trials that will change the way we treat patients in the future.

What would you say to a young person interested in a career in nursing & midwifery?

Nursing has so much to offer. There are so many career opportunities out there once you have grown your basic experience in the profession. I would go for it. Working in clinical research in the NHS is extremely rewarding and if you are an inquisitive person and want to deliver the best care, then research is for you. Clinical research nursing is all about the patients, we leave the design of studies and analysis up to the academics or pharmaceutical industry, we are the experts in the patient side and we leave the other part of research to the experts.

I also work with academic research nurses who strive to develop evidence based care. They are at the forefront of designing research that is relevant to nurses.

Find out more
Nichola.verstraelen@lthtr.nhs.uk

@nicholaverstra1 @LancsResearch

01772 522031