Yesterday brought a there-and-back trip to Southampton, with esteemed colleagues Nicola Evans and Deborah Edwards, for an NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme welcome meeting for our RiSC project. This was an opportunity to meet with other funded researchers (and very interesting they were, too) and to learn more about how the HS&DR Programme works with investigators over the lifetime of projects and beyond. We also had the chance to present our study, and to field questions from the floor.

On its website the HS&DR Programme says that it:

aims to produce rigorous and relevant evidence on the quality, access and organisation of health services, including costs and outcomes. The programme will enhance the strategic focus on research that matters to the NHS including research on implementation and a range of knowledge mobilisation initiatives. It will be keen to support ambitious evaluative research to improve health services.

And that it:

aims to support a range of types of research including evidence synthesis and primary research. This includes large scale studies of national importance. This means primary research projects which:

• Address an issue of major strategic importance to the NHS, with the cost in line with the significance of the problem to be investigated
• Are likely to lead to changes in practice that will have a significant impact on a large number of patients across the UK
• Aim to fill a clear ‘evidence gap’, and are likely to generate new knowledge of direct relevance to the NHS
• Have the potential for findings to be applied to other conditions or situations outside the immediate area of research
• Bring together a team with strong expertise and track record across the full range of relevant disciplines
• Will be carried out across more than one research site.

A search through the programme’s portfolio of projects turns up a raft of studies of national and international significance, including work (ongoing and completed) led by or involving nurses. Well worth a look, in my view…

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