Another quick visit to Rome

I was in Rome again this week to attend a conference. I missed by one day the 4 million visitors who were here for the double papal canonisation (Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II) on 23 April in St. Peter's Square. To non-Catholics, these events are unfathomable, and the ordinary “Catholic in the street” would have difficulty explaining the criteria, the significance, and the effect, if any, on their lives. As one of them, I won’t try to enlighten you.

The weather in Rome was a pleasant change from the U.K., where we are still having subzero Centigrade nights and the garden (the “yard”) is still a place to be endured rather than enjoyed. The conference, held in the Italian Ministero della Saluta (Ministry of Health), was run under the auspices of IPASVI (Nursing Board of Rome) and showcased the work of the Centre of Excellence for the Development of Nursing Research.

The research theme focused on the importance of nurses in feeding patients and contributing to health, and Gennaro Rocco, president of IPASVI, outlined the work of the centre. Since 2010, they have produced an impressive 82 publications from 48 funded projects, a great many in top journals and most in collaboration with other disciplines. Italian colleagues bemoan the poor state of academic nursing in Italy. I know everything is not perfect, but something seems to be working, and this is largely due to President Rocco.

The location of my accommodation was not ideal for running, but I managed to piece together two 3-mile runs early in the morning. Following my first half-marathon (see previous entry), I realised I was not as fit as I thought I was. So, I’ve been studying Run Fast: How to Beat Your Best Time—Every Time, by Hal Higden, and learning the difference between repeats and intervals—not the same thing—and what “fartlek” training is. If you sniggered at fartlek, go to the back of the class. It’s a real word; Google it.

Another review of UK nursing

I tried, without success, to take some days off at Easter, but, at least, I was mainly able to work at home. Once again, just when I thought it safe to read the newspapers without risk of stroke or heart attack, I see another review of nursing education has been commissioned by the U.K. government. The review will be led by Lord Willis, who led a commission on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing a few years ago. That commission looked at preregistration nursing education and came to the conclusion that there is no evidence that being an educated nurse means you are an uncaring nurse. It seems that this new commission will review all aspects of nursing education with a view to recruiting into nursing older candidates with the “right attitude.”

This strays into the territory of the Lancet Commission I will be leading, which I do not mind, but this newly commissioned review begins with the premise that there is a problem—that nurses are not caring enough and that they have little regard for patient dignity. These things may be true, but I am determined that the Lancet Commission is distinguished by the fact that it is not out to solve problems. It does not start from the premise that there is a problem—we don't deny there may be one. Instead, we want to see—whatever the current state of nursing—how best we can prepare nurses from registration throughout their careers to meet the challenges of the next 20 to 30 years.

Bad news

I mentioned in a previous entry that I was revising a research grant application for the Alzheimer’s Society. The proposal was duly revised, resubmitted, and rejected. I have never expressed irritation to a grant-awarding body in the past, but I did this time on the basis that I considered they had wasted my time. Everyone feels angry and let down when a research proposal representing months of works and investment of time and hope is rejected, but the task I was given was huge and the space in which it could be accomplished a challenge, and I failed—apparently. Back to the proverbial drawing board.

On the bright side, I have had several papers published, the most recent being one where, along with my co-authors David R Thompson, PhD, FAAN, Wenru Wang, PhD, RN, and Rob R. Meijer, PhD, we looked at issues affecting measurement of a property called invariant item ordering in the Mental Health Inventory. It was published in Personality and Individual Differences. Reviewer comments were extensive and very helpful, and, in the process of revision, we were asked to consider something that was new to me—person-item fit (PIF).

I contacted my Mokken scaling colleague Rob Meijer in the Netherlands, who has written about this. It just happened that he was developing software to analyse the kind of data I was looking at. In fact, he ran it for me and joined in authorship of the paper. Since then, his colleague Jorge Tendeiro, PhD, provided me with a link to the software and the syntax to run it. 

They also provided me with a draft article (“Practical Guide to Check the Consistency of Item Response Patterns in Clinical Research through Person-Fit Statistics: Examples and a Computer Program”) they wrote for people like me who may not, unlike them, have the programming and statistical knowledge to do these things without a lot of help. In fact, the paper quoted what I said to Meijer when I read one of his papers on PIF: “I have read the 2001 paper; frankly, most of this is beyond me and Google is not much help.” My ignorance has spurred a paper, and I was glad to be of service.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those promoting products or services will not be posted.

A very strange week!

HULL, United Kingdom—Last week I was in London at a Research Excellence Framework subpanel meeting and then in Glasgow at the 2014 Annual International Nursing Research Congress, sponsored by the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom. In Glasgow, I launched, together with Wiley colleagues, Nursing Open with a huge cake bearing a facsimile of the journal’s cover. I have not had my name on a cake since my childhood birthdays.

The conference was very good. I spent the first day in the registration and exhibition hall, where I was able to do some very valuable networking, catch up with old friends and colleagues, and answer questions about Nursing Open and Journal of Advanced Nursing. At the end of the day, I co-presented a workshop on the use of social networking in nursing. Led by my good friend Alison Twycross, PhD, RN, head of Department for Children’s Nursing, London South Bank University, and my new friend, Calvin Moorley, PhD, RN, senior lecturer, London South Bank University (we had only previously met on Twitter), the workshop was well attended and generated a good discussion.

The evening began with a reception at the magnificent Glasgow City Chambers, followed by dinner with Wiley colleagues at Glasgow’s excellent Urban Bar and Brasserie. I had black pudding starter and haggis sausages, and you probably don’t want to know what either of these Scottish delicacies contain.

On my second day, I lined up some research sessions to attend, and I was not disappointed. I gravitate towards sessions on quantitative research, and there were some excellent methodological sessions on Rasch analysis, questionnaire development, and stress and burnout in nursing. In particular, I enjoyed meeting Nina Geuens, PhD student, Karel de Grote-Hogeschool, Belgium, and her supervisor, Erick Franck, professor in applied psychology in health care, Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium. My long journey home by train was filled with thoughts of the Sheffield half marathon I was due to run on Sunday, 6 April, which brings me to Part 2 of this entry.

Nina Geuens, Yours Truly, and Erick Franck

Rebel runners

My early mornings in London and Glasgow were taken up with final preparatory runs. I followed a very strict half-marathon training programme by Hal Higdon. As my children would say, I was “up for it.” If you Google “Sheffield half marathon” or, on Twitter, go to “#sheffieldhalfmarathon” or “#rebelrunners,” you will immediately see what an interesting day this turned out to be.

My wife and I arrived at the starting line, along with more than 5,000 others, at the appointed time and were then held there for 50 minutes without explanation. Rumours abounded but, as it turned out, insufficient water had been supplied for the number of runners involved and, at 9:50 a.m., the run was cancelled. What followed will go down in running history. A predominantly middle-class, law-abiding crowd of runners expressed its disgust the only way we could: We started running, and the police were unable to stop us. I don’t advocate civil or any other kind of disobedience, but this was one of the most moving events of my life. I think Mahatma Ghandi would have been very proud of us.

The general public of Sheffield, which had waited for more than an hour to watch us run, went into their houses, food shops, and coffee bars and emptied fridges and cupboards of all the bottles of water they could find. There were bottles of water on the top of parked cars and runners—normally a selfish and competitive bunch—were handing half-finished bottles to other runners. Where the official water stands were closed by race officials, people stood nearby handing out bottles and paper cups, along with the runners’ best friend: Jelly Babies. These incredible, high calorie-sweets are made in Sheffield, and they are exactly what you need halfway round a long route. If you eat them when you are not taking exercise, the sugar high that results is unique.

The intrepid Dr. Watson

Did I hear you ask how we fared in the race? Well, my wife dropped out, as she has to save herself for official races and has another one coming up soon. When I realised that the police had backed down and saw that the crowd of runners was beginning to snake its way through the town, I decided to complete the course, which was my first half-marathon. I enjoyed the first 10 miles but realised, at that point, that my plan for a fast final three miles was not going to happen. By 11 miles, I was considering ending it all by jumping into the oncoming traffic and, at 12 miles, had it not been for my wife and sister-in-law shouting my name, I might have knelt down and cried. But I carried on to the finish line and was glad to see that the organisers had decided to stay and hand out running vests, water, and medals.

My ambition was twofold: to remain standing at the end and to complete the run within two hours. My time: 1 hour, 47 minutes and 28 seconds and, with wobbly legs and bleeding nipples (exceedingly painful), I was still standing. Some might consider my inability to speak for a considerable length of time another positive result.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

GAPFON is born!

HULL, United Kingdom—I have just returned from Switzerland, from the inaugural meeting of GAPFON (Global Advisory Panel on the Future of Nursing). It was a privilege to be there. Established by Hester Klopper, PhD, MBA, RN, FANSA, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), GAPFON is chaired by Martha Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN, immediate past dean and professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (USA). The meeting was attended by Patricia ‘Pat’ Thompson, EdD, RN, FAAN, chief executive officer of STTI, a glittering host of global nursing stars … and me! The full list of participants is available in this news article in Reflections on Nursing Leadership, and the work of the panel will become public through various events across the world over the next two years. I intend that the Lancet Commission on UK Nursing will work very closely with GAPFON.

GAPFON was held near Basel in the idyllic town of Mariastein, a Catholic Marian grotto owned and run by the Benedictine brothers and Franciscan sisters. Mariastein means “Maria in the stone,” in honour of reported miracles in which the Virgin Mary was said to have protected children who fell down a cliff and escaped injury. In observance of those events, a statue of the Virgin was placed in a nearby grotto.

We were accommodated in the Hotel Kurhaus Kreuz, and it was the ideal venue for a few days of peace with time to think and begin planning for the future of nursing globally. We were in the mountains, the sun shone every day, and the scenery was beautiful. Apart from the slightly thin air—my excuse for a pounding heart and heaving chest—and the frequent hills in the road, this was an ideal running spot. There was hardly any traffic on the roads, and, on my second run, I left Switzerland and ran into France for around 10 miles. It was the first time I registered two countries on my Garmin webpage on the same day.

Hotel Kurhaus Kreuz

Next week I will be in London for the Research Excellence Framework subpanel meeting, and the rest of the week I will be in Glasgow at the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom International Nursing Research Conference. I look forward to hearing about the latest nursing research, meeting old friends, co-presenting on the use of social media in nursing, and launching Nursing Open.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

Another expert on nursing!

HULL, United Kingdom—My next entry was to be from Basel—a report on fresh Swiss mountain air and a Who’s Who? of global nursing personalities. And then something annoyed me.

My wife got to the Sunday Telegraph (14 March 2014) the weekend before I did, taking great interest in an interview with Angela Rippon. Rippon is one of our national treasures: the first female newsreader on U.K. television and a former dancer who took the nation by surprise with a famous routine in a 1976 Christmas comedy special of the duo Morecambe and Wise. Now she fronts the occasional television special and co-chairs the dementia friendly communities champion group, something she became interested in after her mother died with dementia. Although my wife gave me some snippets from the interview, she failed—on the basis that she did not want Sunday spoiled—to read out the following quote (page 23): “Nurses themselves say that everything changed when nurses were learning in a university lecture hall, and not in the ward with hands-on practice. Because they trained on wards, they had contact with patients all the time.”

I had to take some time to catch my breath after typing the above; I nearly stopped breathing on Sunday. I am astonished by how ignorant some people are about nursing education and how ready they are to blame the ills on university education. Everything is not perfect; in fact, much is wrong. But pointing the finger at something that took place at a time when things, allegedly, got worse is simply irresponsible.

Since the halcyon days of nursing care by good-hearted angels of mercy called to the profession by God, or because they were not clever enough for medical school, so many things have changed—in the U.K. National Health Service, in the profile of patients in hospital and at home, and in our society. Of course, public figures often live in an evidence-free zone where they use their opinions to first convince themselves and, then, by taking every opportunity to air those opinions, to convince others, with each utterance making them more sure they are correct.

Linda Aiken et al.’s recent Lancet paper demonstrates the worth of graduate education for nurses. I doubt that Angela Rippon has read it, would read it, or would change her mind if she did read it. However, the most obvious error in the argument against university-educated nurses is that they do all their learning in a lecture hall. Note how “lecture hall”—as opposed to “classroom”—is often used pejoratively in these arguments, as lecture halls represent the epitome of a university education. The argument is wrong, because nursing students have always, demonstrably, spent 50 percent of their time in clinical practice. This was emphasised recently by the U.K. Nursing and Midwifery Council in response to the Francis Report on appalling standards of care in one U.K. National Health Service Trust.

OK, relax!

Good things continue to happen. Despite my present workload, my first loves—data analysis and writing—have not been neglected.

I, together with my good colleagues, David R. Thompson, PhD, FRCN, FAAN, of Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, and Wenru Wang, PhD, RN, of National University of Singapore, submitted a manuscript to Personality and Individual Differences (PAID) on the scale properties of the Mental Health Inventory. It contained a warning about the phenomenon of invariant item ordering, a desirable property of scales whereby the way in which the scale orders people is the same as the order in which they respond to the questions. Still with me?

The initial response from reviewers was longer than the submitted manuscript. However, we received some expert help on person-item fit statistics from Rob R. Meijer, PhD, professor of psychometric and statistical techniques at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and it has just been accepted for publication. The next paper, using the quality-of-life SF-36 scale will address some problems associated with local stochastic independence of items in questionnaires. It’s all fascinating stuff about which I love to talk, but I wonder why people avoid me in the coffee room?

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

The cabbie test

HULL, United Kingdom—Wherever I go, cabbies (a UK expression for taxi or cab drivers) are never backwards at coming forwards with their views, whether in London, Dublin, Washington, D.C., or my hometown of Hull. Race, religion, or politics—no subject is off the agenda, and they tend not to care what your views are; only giving you theirs. I have twice had vociferous views on nursing expressed to me, always with frank disgust at the thought of nurses going to university.

Many years ago—1999 to be precise—I was the first professor of nursing in Ireland and part of a government committee charged with the task of establishing nursing degrees in that country. While en route from the Dublin airport to my apartment, the taxi driver asked what I did. I told him, and he “let fly” with a stream of invective about the move of Irish nursing education into universities. I thanked him for his views and took a mental note never again to tell a taxi driver what I did, exactly.

However, this week, on my way home from the railway station, lulled by a false sense of security, I told a taxi driver my occupation—and promptly regretted it. He had, at one time, worked as a nursing auxiliary, and his view was that everything nursing stood for had been lost with the move of “nurse training” into universities. My mind drifted to gratitude for that “loss.” I, too, used to be a nursing auxiliary, and I recall patients tied to chairs; tea, sugar, and milk being served in the same pot; medicines being forced on patients; and stealing from clinical areas on an industrial scale. But I kept quiet; I just wanted to get home to bed.

I have decided to inaugurate a new test—the “cabbie test.” Cabbies seem to be a barometer for the extremes of public opinion, and the opinion expressed by my drivers is not uncommon amongst the UK public. I rarely meet anyone who is glad about nurses being educated in universities, and I reckon that, even if public opinion were changed, we could not be sure it was permanent until a taxi driver asked what I did and then expressed support for university-educated nurses. When that day comes, if ever, I’ll know that a major milestone for the image of nursing has been achieved.

Running and climbing

I mentioned in my last entry that, for months, I had not broken 22 minutes in the local Saturday-morning 5 kilometre race. Well, last weekend I achieved a time of 21 minutes and 2 seconds, beating my daughter, who is an army physical-training instructor. Competitive or what! I now have 21 minutes in my sights, and, since Christmas 2013, have put the first 1,000 miles on my GPS watch.

My oldest daughter is a rock climber, and she borrowed some equipment from me this weekend to do some real climbing. During these cold, wet months, we mainly climb indoors, but my daughter—a cardiothoracic intensive-care nurse—is clearly getting outdoors. I’m keen to follow. A day on the rocks, with its unique combination of pain and terror, is one of the best forms of meditation available. It will take my mind off cabbies.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

A good week for nursing

HULL, United Kingdom—I have just returned from a week in Genoa (Genova to the locals) in the Ligurian region of Italy, on the country’s northwest coast. Once again, I taught research students at the University of Genova and liaised with collaborators about various research and writing projects. My colleagues there have translated the Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia scale into Italian, and I was helping them test its psychometric properties. This provides me with another database on which to run my own beloved method of Mokken scaling. The sample size is small, but the results are promising and point, as does most psychometric work, to the need for a larger sample. We should get a preliminary publication out of this work.

The most important nursing paper in Europe

Linda Aiken

I said it was a good week for nursing, and I was referring to the publication last week of a paper by Aiken et al. titled “Nurse staffing and education and hospital mortality in nine European countries: a retrospective observational study.” (Linda H. Aiken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN, Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing, professor of sociology, and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania, USA, is on the Lancet Commission on UK Nursing, which I will chair, as is another co-author of the paper, Anne Marie Rafferty, PhD, CBE, PhD, FRCN, chair of nursing policy, King’s College London, UK.) The paper, published in The Lancet, is one outcome of the RN4CAST study and, in addition to showing the effect of inadequate staffing levels on failure to rescue patients, shows—clearly—the benefit of degree-level education for nurses.

Alvisa Palese, MNS, BMS, RN, associate professor, Udine University, Italy, and I were among referees of the Aiken et al. paper, and we published a comment in The Lancet alongside it. I am pleased to have played a small part in such a seminal paper, a document many of us hope will have a profound influence on European nursing education and practice. Watch for further correspondence in the pages of The Lancet. My Italian colleagues have already submitted a letter and some “heavyweights” in Canadian, U.K., and Australian nursing are “limbering up.” (They emailed me the morning before I left Genoa.)

It has also been a good week for nursing in Italy. I’m a bit late with this news, but the first six nursing academics have just been given licences for employment as full professors. (I was able to confirm the numbers just this week.) Until now, nursing academics have been promoted only to the level of associate professor. It especially pleases me that Alvisa Palese, my good friend, colleague, and—ironically—research student, is one of the six.

The Italian process for appointing senior academics is national and very rigorous. A committee—the Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale (ASN)—makes annual judgments on the basis of individual applications. Although I am one of an international panel of assessors for the ASN, I was not involved in this last round. The primary “unit of currency” for promotion is publications, and these must be in refereed journals with an international reputation. Those with impact factors are at the top of the hierarchy.

There is worrying news that the ASN is going to make future recommendations on the basis of an individual’s h-index, and there is a rumour that an h-index of 23 will be the requirement. I have been consulted by Italian nursing academics and organisations about this, because the h-index is something about which I have written. My view on the use of h-indices per se is that caution should be exercised. Moreover, I think an h-index requirement of 23 is ludicrous. Few academics attain that level, and it is especially the case that few nurses have attained it, or will. I’m glad to say I have, but only after a 16-year professorial career.

Next ports of call

Next week, I will be in Belfast to sit on the validation panel of a nursing programme at the University of Ulster, and I have dinner booked with Hugh McKenna, CBE, PhD, FRCN, FAAN, pro vice-chancellor, University of Ulster, UK. Later this month, I go to Basel for a long weekend to discuss issues that face nursing globally with Hester Klopper, PhD, MBA, RN, RM, FANSA, president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International, and a select group of colleagues. We’ll be meeting under the umbrella of GAPFON (Global Advisory Panel on the Future of Nursing).

I put more than 20 Genovese miles on my Garmin GPS watch, and I plan to add Northern Ireland and Switzerland for the first time this year. My 19-year-old son just broke 20 minutes for the first time in our local 5-kilometre parkrun race. Pressure to perform in my family is terrific, but what I like most is that none of my children—most of whom are runners and climbers—expect me to do any worse than they do. For your information, my fastest 5 kilometres is 21 minutes 38 seconds, and that was last year when I was a young man of 57. I am now 58 and have not broken 22 minutes this year, but I’m working on it.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

Anybody NOT in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong SAR, China—My first 2014 visit to Hong Kong was busy, mainly because so many other UK nursing academics were here. The list included: Hugh McKenna, CBE, PhD, FRCN, FAAN, pro-vice-chancellor (research and innovation), University of Ulster, UK; Dame Jill Macleod Clark, DBE, PhD, FRCN, professor of nursing, University of Southampton, UK; and Dawn Freshwater, PhD, RN, pro-vice-chancellor, University of Leeds, UK (soon to become deputy vice-chancellor, University of Western Australia). McKenna chairs the Research Excellence Framework’s subpanel for dentistry, allied health professions, nursing, and pharmacy, on which Macleod Clark, Freshwater, and I sit, and McKenna and Macleod Clark will serve on The Lancet Commission on UK Nursing, which I will chair. It’s a very small world.

Laifuyu/iStock/Thinkstock

Of course, we had to have dinner, and we were joined at Felix, one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive “high-level” restaurants (located at the tower atop world-famous Peninsula Hotel), by Kay Jones, MBA, chief operating officer, School of Health Sciences, City University London, UK, and Philip Esterhuizen, PhD, RN, lecturer in adult nursing, University of Leeds. The view over the harbour to Hong Kong island is eye-watering, the food to die for (I don’t think I have ever used that expression before), and the service unobtrusive and immaculate. The washrooms are a triumph, with surprises for both genders (best Googled rather than explained).

Amidst all this luxury dining and fun, this impromptu type of meeting, which involves colleagues who are as busy or more busy than me, is crucial. We have to take these opportunities, as nobody else provides them. Held without agenda, aims, or objectives, they are the most productive. Untrammelled by organisational issues, hierarchy, or the need to list tangible, bean-counting outcomes, such as how does this benefit my university, these gatherings are the time to discuss the state of nursing, the future of nursing, and who we need to cultivate. Of course, the Chatham House Rule applies, and what is said by whom at these tables stays at these tables.

Once again, I was in Hong Kong with Mark Hayter, PhD, FRSA, FAAN, my colleague from Hull and fellow editor of Journal of Advanced Nursing. Although we were teaching and consulting at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, our time here allows us to set up lunches and dinners with key people in the SAR (Special Administrative Region) and to extend the influence of our own work with the Journal of Advanced Nursing and the University of Hull. We also took time while in Hong Kong to meet Linda Sim, manager of the Marco Polo Club, the frequent-flyer privileges club associated with Cathay Pacific Airways. We dined at Hutong, another high level Chinese restaurant overlooking Hong Kong harbour, and were joined by Graeme Smith, PhD, RN, professor of nursing at Edinburgh Napier University, UK, and editor of Journal of Clinical Nursing, based in Hong Kong.

Recognition at last

This month, Alzheimer’s Disease International published a report, Nutrition and Dementia, in which my work on the development of the Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia (EdFED) scale is cited. I was very pleased to see this, as it may increase the use of the EdFED and stimulate further research. It also reminded me how grateful I am for long-standing collaborations in the development and application of the EdFED, especially with Ian Deary, PhD, FRSE, FBA, professor, The University of Edinburgh, UK, and Li-Chan Lin, PhD, RN, professor, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.

While in Hong Kong, I resided out in the New Territories, to the North of Hong Kong, where I found a running route along the reservoir in Sha Tin. It was cold this time of year and humid—not ideal for running, but still a great way to start the day and to register another 20 miles over five days in my wife-imposed half-marathon training program me.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.

All publicity is just publicity

HULL, United Kingdom—The Lancet Commission on UK Nursing is going well, if you consider all publicity to be good publicity. Without meaning to ignore the many congratulations I have had on being asked to lead this and the offers of help, it is human nature that the stream of derision on Twitter and two letters in Nursing Standard verging on the abusive should have the greater impact.

So, what has upset people so much? Where do I start?

Why another commission on nursing? Why is a “medical” journal investigating nursing? The terms of reference are not yet published. Why is there no patient representation? Why all academics? Why no student voice? Why so many people from Hull? Why so few women? How have the commissioners been selected? (The undemocratic approach has been likened to South Africa before the yoke of apartheid was thrown off!) I think that is all, and I have no intention of retorting—as well I am able—as these detractors know I cannot.

Moving on. Since the initial announcement, we have added more commissioners, and we are working on the terms of reference, which will be agreed upon soon and duly published. Without attempting to answer my critics, I am honoured personally to have been asked by The Lancet to lead the commission and, given that reports from The Lancet are referred to almost daily on BBC (British Broadcasting Commission) Radio, the journal’s reach and influence is indisputable. The organization has a well-oiled publicity machine, and their podcasts are well worth listening to. If you have an iPad (access via other tablets is also available), you can subscribe (free) and download them automatically.

Nursing Open

The first teleconference of Nursing Open’s editorial team took place this week. We have four associate editors, based in Australia (Allison Williams, PhD, MN), Bahrain (Seamus Cowman, PhD, FAAN, FFNMRCSI), Canada (Alex Clark, PhD, RN), and Finland (Riitta Suhonen, PhD, RN). With such an international team, these teleconferences have to take place at a time antisocial for someone—usually me. I have another teleconference this evening with the equally geographically disparate team of Journal of Advanced Nursing editors. Life is sometimes stressful and inconvenient, but never dull.

My children have great difficulty explaining to their friends what I do, and most attempts end with a question to me: “Dad, what exactly is it that you do?” For the second time in this entry, where do I start?

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

Strange time of year

HULL, United Kingdom—I find January a strange time of year. The previous year ends in a frenzy of finishing things off, yet the New Year starts with just as much work to do as ever—and with the added stress that you’re now behind by at least two weeks.

My editor-in-chief inbox at the Journal of Advanced Nursing (JAN) was full of new manuscripts to review. Clearly, the editors had been making the most of the break and processing their allocation of manuscripts, so my “outbox”—the one that fills up with manuscripts ready for editing and production—is still not empty. I’m not complaining. If there were no manuscripts, there would be no JAN. Incidentally, if you want to know more about the editorial team of JAN, visit our blog and scroll down to the series of pieces called “Ten things about,” and you’ll find out about us there.

The Lancet Commission

The Lancet Commission is taking shape. The commissioners are appointed, and the press has picked up the story—must have been something to do with my well-crafted press release. I’ve been in the local newspaper, on local radio, and in Nursing Standard. I understand the need to get information out to the press, but I get irritated speaking to journalists. Is it just me, or do they not understand the purpose of a press release? I feel like saying “That’s the story; you’ve got it,”' but they insist on probing, and they always make me feel I’m trying to hide something. I’m not afraid to say, “I don’t know,” to a journalist, but I hate the subsequent efforts to help me find an answer. It must be a technique they learn in journalism school. I have put up a list of the commissioners on my new “Lancet Commission on UK Nursing” blog.

Feeding difficulty in dementia

The other major distraction from doing what I want—making travel arrangements and running statistical analyses on large datasets—has been revising a grant application to the Alzheimer's Society. The application is for a three-year PhD studentship, and the proposed project is to take forward a line of work on interventions for feeding difficulty in older people with dementia. This is my second application, the first having been rejected.

Feeding difficulty in older people with dementia has been a major interest since my days in clinical practice. My development of the Edinburgh Feeding Difficulty in Dementia (EdFED) scale, along with Ian Deary, PhD, FBA, at The University of Edinburgh, opened many doors for me, none more important than that of Li-Chan Lin, PhD, of National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. I had the privilege of hosting Professor Lin as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor while I was at The University of Sheffield. She gave an excellent lecture that was chaired by Vice-Chancellor Sir Keith Burnett, CBE, FRS, and reported in Research Endeavours And Dissemination (READ), the nursing research bulletin. Lin and I translated the instrument into Chinese, and it has been used as an outcome measure in her seminal work on interventions to help older people with dementia who have feeding difficulty.

The interventions are based on Montessori methods and spaced retrieval, and all evidence to date suggests that they work. My intention is to transfer the work to the UK and develop a brief intervention. We have proof of concept, but the intervention is time-consuming and labour-intensive. If I have attended to the revisions to the satisfaction of the Alzheimer’s Society, I may be awarded the grant, and you will be among the first to know.

Nursing Open

Finally, as if I did not have enough to do, I have agreed to be the founding editor for a new Wiley journal called Nursing Open. The journal will be online, open access, and pay to publish, a very different venture from JAN. The website should be populated before my next entry, so I hope you will look forward to learning more about Nursing Open and its team of associate editors.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.

Home for Christmas

UNITED KINGDOM—I love Christmas, and I’m not afraid to admit it. There is the underlying Christian message, which, along with a dwindling minority in the U.K., I actually believe. I also like the more Victorian aspects of Christmas: Christmas trees, Christmas cards (if my wife writes them), and Christmas Day. Aware that many spend Christmas alone and face hardship here and across the world, I am grateful that my family gathers together. At some point in the holiday season, all of our eight children and five grandchildren will visit, plus husbands, partners, friends, and a dog. I won’t answer email for a fortnight. Initially, I suffer withdrawal symptoms and then settle down, to emerge at the other end ready to face the next year. And next year is going to be one of my busiest.

Looking back on 2013

This year has been busy, too, but not exceptional. I have been lucky to visit 13 countries outside the U.K., and past blogs recount my visits to Hong Kong, Italy, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Australia, the United States, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. With the exception of Thailand, I have run in each of these places, which was one of my unstated goals for the year. My running miles on the ground this year amount to 700; my miles in the air 150,000. I am, I realise, very lucky to have the funding and freedom to do this.

Looking forward to 2014

A large part of my work next year will be taken up with the United Kingdom Research Excellence Framework (REF). A periodic exercise—recent ones, then called Research Assessment Exercises, took place in 2001 and 2008—it is the mechanism whereby the British government allocates core-research funding to British universities. I serve on the subpanel for dentistry, allied health professions, nursing, and pharmacy (subpanel 3 of main panel A), led by Hugh McKenna, CBE, FRCN, FAAN, pro-vice chancellor, research and innovation (equivalent to a university vice president) at the University of Ulster. 

McKenna a mental-health nurse, is one of the leading U.K. academic nurses. The REF is multifaceted, assessing research outputs (publications and patents), environment, and impact. However, at the heart of the exercise lies peer review, and the majority of the work is reading and rating publications for their international excellence. This will occupy almost all my waking hours between January and October 2014—in my office, on trains, and on planes.

I mentioned in a previous blog that I have been asked to lead a Lancet commission on U.K. nursing. This will take place over approximately the next two years, and I am in the process of assembling the commissioners this week. Once they are in place, the work of the commission can begin, and I will let you know who my colleagues are and keep you informed of progress. Each of the people I have contacted has received a statement from me, which is my assessment of the situation in the United Kingdom at present, and I have made this available on my own blog. Comments on this are welcome, as they will inform the commission.

Everyone’s an expert

Like last year, I thought I would make it to the end of the year without some public figure making an adverse pronouncement about nursing education, but I was wrong. This time it was Vince Cable, MP (member of Parliament), secretary of state for business, innovation, and skills in the British government. Cable claimed that degrees are superfluous to many jobs and, of course, he had to include nursing. I spotted this while I was in Singapore and, just as my blood pressure was rising, I saw that Ieuan Ellis, professor at Leeds Metropolitan University, had responded in the pages of THE (Times Higher Education).

I was especially gratified at his response, titled “Sterile debate,” because Ellis speaks with authority. He is chair of the U.K.’s Council of Deans of Health. Moreover, he is not a nurse; he is a physiotherapist and a pro-vice chancellor at Leeds Metropolitan University. In his response, Ellis said of Cable, “It is unfortunate that he is seemingly unaware of the benefits to patients of nurses being educated to degree level.” He cited a large body of work as follows: “The international RN4CAST study of nurses in more than 10 European countries (including England) shows that mortality is approximately 7 percent lower for every 10 percent increase in the proportion of nurses with degrees. This backs up work in the [United States] by University of Pennsylvania scholar Linda Aiken, who found that a 10 percent increase in the number of nurses with a bachelor’s degree was associated with a 5 percent reduction in the likelihood of patients dying within 30 days of admission.”

Season's greetings

I would like to thank the many people who have visited this blog; I hope that most of those who have read it will return in 2014. This is me, signing off for 2013 and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.