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School appoints two new Chairs in nursing

The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery is pleased to announce the appointment of two new Chairs.

Professor Jill Maben, Director of the National Nursing Research Unit (NNRU), based at the School, has been appointed as Chair in Nursing Research, and Professor Glenn Robert will take on the role of Chair of Healthcare Quality & Innovation. The roles will support the School’s developing research strategy.

Professor Maben’s principle research interests lie in the healthcare and nursing workforce – new and extended roles; educational developments; policy; migration; recruitment and retention; staff well being; and the quality of nurses working lives. She is also passionate about the effects of these on patient and staff outcomes and, more broadly, in how these affect the patient experience. Professor Maben, with colleagues at the NNRU, will lead new research to support the Government’s health visiting programme including a scoping review on health visiting practice, and its impact on child and family wellbeing; work examining service users’ perspectives and issues relating to recruitment, retention and preparation for health visiting practice.

Professor Robert’s research draws on the fields of organisational studies and organisational sociology and focuses on implementing quality and service improvement in health care, and studying innovations in the organisation and delivery of healthcare services (such as NHS Treatment Centres or ‘The Productive Ward’).He has an overarching interest in organisation development and change management that spans all three domains of healthcare research, policy and practice. His current research interests include drawing on the field of design and the design sciences and identifying and testing methods that might have value in addressing some of the organisational challenges facing healthcare organisations. A particular focus of recent work has been on developing and testing an ‘Experience-based Co-design' approach to improving the experiences of patients and staff.

In addition to the appointment of Professors Maben and Robert, the School has also promoted Dr Jacqueline Bloomfield and Dr Anne Jones to senior lecturers, again strengthening the School’s teaching and research provision.