Lead Nurse for Research and Innovation awarded prestigious Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholarship
Congratulations to Gail Woodburn, Lead Nurse for Research and Innovation, who has secured one of just a handful of Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarships.
The Florence Nightingale Foundation Leadership Scholarship provides nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (AHPs) with the skills and self-confidence to contribute positively, and with some significance, to the rapidly changing world of healthcare.
Recipients of the scholarship undertake a bespoke programme geared to their individual needs based on current performance assessment. The scholarships have three broad aims:
- To develop and enhance the individual’s leadership skills;
- To help define long term career objectives and maximise professional impact; and
- To work on an individual patient care improvement project.
Gail, who became CMFT’s first Lead Nurse for Research and Innovation in 2009, will use the scholarship and her knowledge and skills to support the implementation of the Trust’s Nursing, Midwifery and AHP (NMAHP) Research Strategy.
She will also investigate how NMAHP clinical academic pathways are developed and aims to promote NMAHP research across CMFT and beyond so it is seen on an equal footing with medically driven research.
Gail explains:
My aim is to help develop a process and structure that enables NMAHPs to pursue a clinical academic career whilst maintaining clinical work. The scholarship will enable me to pursue my passion for workforce and leadership development, which I am excited about, as well as putting nursing, midwifery and allied health professional research at the centre of individualised patient care.
Chief Executive of The Florence Nightingale Foundation Professor Elizabeth Robb OBE said:
We are delighted that Gail Woodburn has been awarded a Garfield Weston Foundation/Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholarship. Florence Nightingale was pivotal in developing healthcare research and we continue to develop leadership capacity and capability in clinical research through supporting scholarships for research leaders and our Florence Nightingale Foundation Chairs.
