The impact of redeployment during COVID-19 on nurses [COVID-19]

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Lessons from the frontline: The impact of redeployment during COVID-19 on nurse well-being, performance and retention

  • IRAS ID

    290616

  • Contact name

    Rebecca Lawton

  • Contact email

    R.J.Lawton@leeds.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    n/a, n/a

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 5 months, 28 days

  • Research summary

    In February 2020, there were 335,171 nurses working in the NHS, approximately half of whom work in acute hospital care. These nurses, working on the frontline during COVID-19, have experienced redeployment to specialties and teams they have never worked in before. Redeployment has been extensive and varied. The consequences of redeployment can vary, and the emotional ramifications of working through COVID-19 are only beginning to be understood. The longer-term consequences of this crisis for healthcare staff are, as yet, unknown. There is a lack of research on specific consequences of staff redeployment, an important feature of the Covid-19 response in the UK.

    This is an important gap in our understanding for three main reasons:
    1. Health need: Nurse retention is critical for the NHS. We need to understand the implications of redeployment (and other changes related to covid-19) for staff wellbeing, engagement, sickness/absence and retention so that we can plan to mitigate the impact of these on staff outcomes and patient care.
    2. New knowledge: Redeployment is common within the NHS, however redeployment is not well understood. The large-scale redeployment of staff during covid-19 provides a unique opportunity to understand how to best to this in a crisis and beyond.
    3. Organisational need: Senior staff within our NHS Trusts (matrons, HR managers) were asked to plan their staffing and respond to the crisis in a very short timescale with no existing evidence to support their decisions. As evidence emerged of the increased risk to BAME staff they were required again to respond. These decision makers require a framework for thinking about the different methods for reallocating staff and the ethical implications of adopting these different approaches.

    This study, funded via the NIHR HS&DR Covid Recovery and Learning programme, will explore these important gaps and aims to understand the implications of redeployment for nurse wellbeing, engagement and retention. This will enable understanding of how to best to do this and mitigate the impact.

    Two work packages will be conducted to address the following research questions:
    WP1: How was the process of redeploying nursing staff managed prior to and during the Covid-19 crisis? (via interviews & focus groups)

    WP2: How did nurses make sense of redeployment during the COVID-19 crisis and what effects does it have on well-being and job outcomes? (via interviews and questionnaires).

  • REC name

    N/A

  • REC reference

    N/A