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Katie Hards: Nursing in research

Photo of Katie HardsKatie Hards is a Diabetes Specialist Nurse – Clinical Lead for Adult Services, OUH NHS Foundation Trust

With over 30 years’ experience in nursing, it’s no surprise that Katie Hards has a senior role as the clinical lead nurse for Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust (OUH) Diabetes Service. What might be more surprising for some is that she is also a research student at Oxford Brookes University – currently in the second year of her professional doctorate.

Katie’s route into research came late in her career for many reasons. When she went into nursing in the 1980s it wasn’t yet a graduate profession, and she trained on the job, firstly in the North of Scotland before moving down to Oxfordshire.

“I qualified, got married and had children and my career just carried on in a very typical trajectory,” Katie recalls. “Although I was gathering a lot of experience, my academic progression during all that time was fairly limited. I did respiratory nursing, I did renal transplant, I did emergency medicine – I got a very good foundation across lots of areas, rather than specialising straight away. After I had my daughter, I didn’t want to go back into emergency medicine while caring for a small baby, so I changed to practice nursing and that led me to diabetes nursing where I am today.”

Katie realised that without a degree in nursing, she would find it difficult to progress her career, so took the necessary steps to achieve that qualification in Northampton, where she was working at the time. She already had some of the elements required, such as nurse prescribing, so was able to fill in the gaps with additional modules and gained her degree in 2016.

In 2018, Katie applied for her current role. “I was so pleased to get the job, to be honest, as OUH puts a lot of emphasis on the academic side and my credentials in that weren’t particularly strong,” she says. “I suspect that, in the same position today, I wouldn’t even be shortlisted.”

From clinical practice to research

Katie was just starting to think about the next steps in her career when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The logical step, she thought, was to study for a Master’s degree, but Helen Walthall, Director of Nursing Research at OUH, recommended that she go directly for a professional doctorate. This combines Master’s study with a research project, thereby achieving a doctorate in a condensed time frame, by taking account of a candidate’s professional experience.

“It was the best piece of advice I could have received and I’m so lucky to have been put on the right path,” Katie says. “It’s been fairly painful at times and definitely a steep learning curve. But I’ve learned so much and it’s been an absolute privilege to have the time to access and unpick some of the knowledge that sits behind our practice.”

In 2022, Katie was granted a Research Development Award from the Oxford Academic Health Partners. The scheme aims to support the research and development culture for nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, pharmacists and healthcare scientists, known collectively as NMAHPPS. The award covered part of Katie’s fees but the most important aspect was the recognition it gave to her efforts.

“Research in nursing is still an evolving entity, so it was really important to have the credibility that award gave me,” she says. “It proved that this was something that I was committed to, which made it easier for me to put aside one day a week for study. I protect that time fiercely – and I do the same for any of my team who are studying – but in reality, if there are people off sick, then I’m back doing my clinical work.”

Despite the challenges of juggling study and research with a full-time job, Katie feels she’s had lots of support from her colleagues across the Trust. It’s more difficult to access funding for doctorate-level study, which is Level 8 equivalent, but Katie’s department and Helen Walthall have supported her through that.

A different perspective on problem solving

Katie is now completing her final taught module and putting together the protocol and ethics for her research project, which will look at the lived experience of adults over 25 years of age who are newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Katie hopes to understand their lived experience of dealing with the diagnosis, to feed into service improvement. She will recruit patients from neighbouring trusts to avoid any conflict with her clinical role.

The research is likely to take several years, so if all runs smoothly and Katie receives her doctorate at the end of the project, she will have another decade before retirement to contribute to the NHS as a post-doc. The doctorate study is already having a positive impact on her clinical practice.

“When I’m in my uniform, I need to be able to pull things together and try and find the answer to any problem,” explains Katie. “But as a researcher, I can take a step back and look at the problem differently, and decide what questions to ask to get the answers I need to tackle it. Having that different perspective has changed how I problem-solve and approach things. I’m proud to say that I’m both actively learning and using what I’m learning in my practice.”

Katie hopes her experience will encourage others to consider a similar path, whatever stage they are at in their careers.

“In nursing, most people think research isn’t for them,” she says. ‘But I think we underestimate the impact we can have as nurses in evaluating and improving services. When I trained, research was very much for doctors. That view is shifting and student nurses are now exposed to research during their studies, but they’re still not research-confident. They can interpret research, but there’s still too few nurses leading in the delivery of research.”

Despite her late entry into research, Katie has no regrets.

“With hindsight, if I was to start my career again, I would probably choose to do a degree,” she muses. “But if I’d followed a different path, I wouldn’t be the nurse I am today.”