What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme?

Covid-19 has driven the implementation of digital healthcare at pace. This includes recommendations highlighted by the Topol Review (2019), illustrating the possibilities of innovative approaches to care through digitisation. WHO (2021) argues the strategic, innovative use of digital technologies is essential for achieving Universal Health Coverage , but digitisation of healthcare has profound implications for the workforce (Topol, 2019). Since Topol there has been investment in developing the digital leadership infrastructure but there has been less focus on equipping the wider nursing workforce (HEE, 2020) and nurses have faced challenges in keeping up to date with the pace of digitisation (Booth, 2021). Nurses are not a homogenous group but include people of different ages, ethnicity, disability; which are population groups known nationally to experience digital inequality (Honeyman et al, 2020). As such it is important to understand and work with nurses to enable them to embrace this new aspect of their role.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Aim: To use nurses’ experiences of how Covid-19 driven digitisation has changed their role, digital confidence and capability, to enhance future nursing practice in different settings.

Objectives: To;

·  explore nurses’ experiences of the benefits/challenges of digitally enhanced practice

·  examine nurses’ perceptions of how digitisation could help transform their practice now and in the future

·  co-produce a toolkit for employers to use when implementing digitally enabled nursing services

Only 46% of staff felt their organisation was effective in supporting staff to develop digital capabilities; nurses can see the benefits of digitisation but there is a significant gap between the vision and nurses/midwives readiness to deliver it (RCN, 2018). Digitisation can lead to fatigue-related techno stress (Kahunita et al 2015) resulting in a negative impact on staff wellbeing. Using a co-production framework enables intended beneficiaries to exert maximum influence on the project to ensure relevance and effectiveness to optimise the impact on staff wellbeing.

How will the project be delivered?

A two-step methodology combining complex adaptive systems and co-production approaches.

1.      UK online survey exploring Registered Nurses’ experiences of how Covid-19 driven digitisation has changed their nursing role and digital confidence and capability. Deployed through social media and established national nursing and quality improvement networks this survey includes rating scale and open questions, and analysis will use SPSS and thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2022).

2.      Co-production with frontline nurses (n=6), NHSx (n=1), Trust digitisation leads (n=2), Q Digitalisation Group representative (n=1) meeting 3 times to:

a. review findings and identify key issues from national survey

b. draft toolkit, including: recommendations for digital policy development and improvement, illustrative case studies/personas, ‘top tips’/quick guide.

c. present draft toolkit to national stakeholder event (including: frontline and executive nurses, national leaders in digital enablement, NHSx, Trust digitisation leads, Q community). This event will provide a wider check/challenge of the toolkit, ensuring relevance and supporting dissemination.

How is your project going to share learning?

We will share outcomes/outputs and our learning from the process at a community and/or SIG event; and provide a report.

The national stakeholder check and challenge event will promote shared learning regarding the impact of digitalisation on the workforce and co-designed principles to inform policy and practice. System-wide learning will also be facilitated by:

– sharing the findings and resources with NHSx, other national organisations and networks;

– hosting a national workshop/learning event (eg NHSx or NHS Digital Academy) to raise awareness and develop shared actions;

– making available a re-usable survey tool for organisations to explore the digitisation experiences of their own staff to assist forward planning;

– presenting at SIGMA (international nursing scholarship society) (project team membership)

– incorporating the lessons learned into WHO Europe digital healthcare flagship programme the project team are contributing to.

– publishing papers in academic and professional journals.