School of Nursing and Midwifery

I am a Lecturer in Adult Nursing with a particular interest in evidenced based practice and palliative care

I completed my RGN training in 1991. I worked clinically for twelve years in a variety of hospice and end of life care environments. I completed my Master’s degree in ‘Death andSociety’ at Reading University in 2003 with distinction. I was awarded the RCN Marjorie Simpson New Researcher Award in 2007 for work undertaken as part of my PhD. This considered the care needs of hospice patients and families with a family history of cancer in the context of genetic predisposition. I completed my PhD in 2009 at BirminghamUniversity.

My research is primarily focused on providing information to help healthcare professionals better understand the needs of patients and their families at the end of life.

I am particularly interested in the way people obtain psychosocial and spiritual support when living with advancing incurable disease. My first study looked at the reasons why people with incurable disease went on pilgrimage and my PhD focused on how the knowledge of genetic predisposition to cancer affected the care needs of palliative patients and their families.

I have also worked work on a project that considers the educational needs of nurses and allied health professionals working with people with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. This led to my current project which considers the care needs of people with advancing progressive disease and co-morbid musculoskeletal pain.

I am currently a Post-Doctoral School of Nursing and Midwifery Fellow undertaking an epidemiological study that looks at the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain at the end of life.

My main teaching focus is palliative and end of life care but I am also actively involved in teaching evidence based practice.