Constructing modern nursing professional identity through interpreting NHS nurses' discourse

Description

The recently published NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan outlines several challenges the NHS faces. One of these challenges is the lack of a sufficient workforce to deliver healthcare. To contribute to the two priority areas - training and retaining nurses - we designed research to uncover the modern nursing professional identity to explore how nursing is perceived and how this relates to their well-being.

A better understanding of the modern nursing professional identity allows nursing to be seen as a respectable and professional occupation and, in return, encourages more people to consider nursing as a career.

This study was funded through the Michael Beverley Innovation Fellowship. 

Research overview

The objective of this research is to construct the modern nursing professional identity taking the perceptions of nurses working in NHS Trusts to enhance the public perception of nursing to attract and retain more people into nursing.

The research consists of a survey and an interview to explore nurses’ own perspectives on nursing, nurse motivations for choosing nursing as a career, ways in which the profession can receive greater professional recognition, and current experiences of organisational and individual aspects, including job satisfaction, engagement, and well-being.

Collectively, this information will enable the researchers to develop a model of nursing professional identity that aligns with the research objective.

Contact

Contact Ester Bolt, project principal investigator, to explore collaboration opportunities or request to stay up-to-date about this research.