NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship awarded to Sarah McAllister and Sarah Combes

The NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship supports healthcare professionals to conduct a PhD by research, whilst continuing to develop their clinical skills.  It is an individual training award that offers funding to cover the individual’s salary, tuition, research and training costs. 

Sarah McAllister and Sarah Combes from the Faculty were both awarded NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowships. 
 
Sarah McAllister's research will empower a service-user group to take a lead role, and in partnership with NHS staff, co-design and implement an intervention to improve nurse-patient therapeutic engagement on acute mental health wards. The project is anticipated to take three years, with expected outcomes being improvements in the amount, type and quality of nurse-patient engagement, improved service user-service provider relations, and to foster a culture of collaborative working/research practices within the NHS Trust.
 
Sarah says: 'I am humbled and very grateful to receive such an incredible award. Thank you to everybody who helped me on this journey, especially my supervisors Professor Glenn Robert and Dr Niall McCrae. I can’t wait to begin my research and start impacting inpatient mental health care in a positive way.'

Sarah Combes will be focusing on facilitating advance care planning (ACP) for older people living with frailty in the community. The ACP process is particularly important for this group as they are extremely vulnerable to sudden deterioration; those with severe frailty are almost five times as likely to die within the next year as a fit person their age.  However, older people living with frailty don’t often engage with ACP.  As such this group often experience inappropriate hospital admissions, are often under or over-treated, and despite the majority wishing to die at home, most die in hospital, a setting associated with poorer end-of-life care quality for the person and their families. Her research addresses the gap by asking how can we support this population in the community to engage with ACP and improve quality at the end of life. It is underpinned the MRC framework for complex interventions and behavioural change theory,and will take three years to complete

Sarah says: 'The study is based in collaborative methodologies. As such I will be collaborating with older people living with frailty, their significant others, health and social care professionals, and the voluntary sector to: 

• Deliver a theoretically and clinically underpinned model of ACP

• Collaboratively develop an intervention that improves person-centred quality of life

• Build workforce capacity in end of life care planning

Additionally, the study has the potential to reduce crisis management, inappropriate admissions, and make cost savings.'

Both shared their top tips for applying for the Fellowship:

Sarah McAllister: 'Although the process is highly competitive, I do recommend applying if you’re passionate about forging a clinical academic career.  My top tips would be to start your application early (it can take up to six months to one year to write something good).  Remember they are not just judging you on the quality of your research proposal.  They also want to see evidence of your commitment and potential of becoming a future leading clinical academic and that you have a strong training and development plan.  And finally, my number one tip: if you’re shortlisted to interview, do as many mock interviews as people are willing to let you do.'

Sarah Combes: 'There are many hints and tips, but there are two that are key.  Firstly, leave yourself enough time to complete the application.  It is a significant amount of work, particularly if you are working full time.  I was incredibly lucky as I secured a Nightingale Studentship through the Faculty which allowed me the time to work on my application full time. If you are working full time instead, you need to commit around 6-12 months to work the application up as the Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship (CDRF) isn't just about your study proposal, it is also based on you and your potential, your clinical and academic support, and your training and development plan. Secondly, you need a really good academic supervisory team who know about the NIHR process, your area of interest, and how to help you to develop and grow. I am incredibly grateful for the support and guidance of my supervisors, Dr Caroline Nicholson, Dr Karen Gillett, and Professor Christine Norton.  I don't believe I would have been able to secure the CDRF without their time, advice and mentoring.'

Congratulations to Sarah and Sarah on their Fellowships!