Development of a skill mix and study planning tool for research teams
Intended for healthcare professionals
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Development of a skill mix and study planning tool for research teams

Paula Tacchi Research matron, Research and Innovation Department, Education and Research Centre, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

There are various tools available in acute and primary care settings to support decision making about safe-staffing levels. Calculating safe staffing levels is about more than just the number of people on duty. It must reflect skill mix and tasks, and this is more complex outside traditional nursing roles. It is essential that research nurses, who work in multidisciplinary teams collecting the evidence that underpins safe and effective healthcare, are equipped to practise safely, but staffing level tools do not take their unique roles into account. This article describes University Hospitals Bristol Research Work Plan Tool (BRIS-TOOL), developed to enable research managers to identify skill mix in their teams and support effective study planning. It also discusses how the tool accurately reflects research teams' productivity. Finally, the article suggests that the tool can be used to profile research posts, illustrate the breadth of work undertaken in these posts, inform study design and help clinical colleagues to understand research roles better.

Nursing Management. 23, 9, 19-28. doi: 10.7748/nm.2017.e1466

Correspondence

paula.tacchi@uhbristol.nhs.uk

Peer review

This article has been subject to double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 18 December 2015

Accepted: 09 September 2016

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