How establishing a senior research leader role in an NHS trust can encourage nurse researchers in patient care

In the field of nursing, not every nurse has been an academic, but every academic has been a nurse. I have been a nurse for 27 years, yet 19 of those have been spent in academia. Unlike a medical school model, where academics most often retain a clinical role alongside a role in teaching or research, nursing academia has a long history of removing its nurses from their clinical role entirely; and while this is okay with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who allow the role of ‘nurse lecturer’ to count for the professional register and its revalidation process, it often leads to an estranged relationship with clinical credibility and confidence over time.