The project is progressing well! The team have been working to gain governance to engage with the different Trusts and to gain ethical approval for the research elements of the project.  This has been the practical side of our progression. The motivating side has been in developing our collaborations within and outside of the team.  We have learnt from each other as inter-professional colleagues, to the benefit of our own knowledge and to enhance this project. 

We had an interesting discussion about the use of language and nuances of understanding what different terms mean to those in different sectors. The word ‘consultation’ was particularly interesting. For those on the research side, this is a term used when we want to speak with people, but it is not as formal a process as taking part in research, while nursing colleagues interpreted this as being a medical consultation. Working across the different areas led to a richer development of our project documents and a reminder that the terminology we use isn’t always read the same way by everyone. This is something that can be overlooked and lead to confusion later.

Developing the questions for our planned focus groups and evaluation questionnaires was also done collaboratively and again this led to discussions about phrasing and making sure we got to the heart of the issue that this project is aiming to address. It really showed the importance of working as a team and for everyone to have input into these early stages of the project.

We have also had our first meeting with our mentor, Professor Pauline Kneale. There was some uncertainty in knowing how these mentor meetings would work. Within minutes this uncertainty went, this was a special opportunity to share ideas about the project with Pauline in a way that shed new light on what and why we are doing this project. Sharing project ideas and plans with someone outside of the team can feel daunting. Pauline’s enthusiasm for the project soon put any doubts aside and we were able to consider what was going well with the project, where we might face any hurdles and to think about ways around these. We expanded our ideas for our literature review to incorporate a review of other university’s courses. This identified ways to learn from best practice, or showcase our own best practice. We started thinking more about ways to disseminate findings, thinking laterally about approaching marketing journals and not just our ‘safe’ health journals. This initial meeting was successful in engaging our team members and pushing us to extend the horizons of this project.

Written by Dr Alison Ward