Ms Pollyanna Kellett

Role: Lecturer in Nursing, Research Champion

Qualifications

Professional membership

Teaching interests

Teaching

In the Faculty of Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, I work across academic levels 4 to 7. I teach on the Nursing Associate apprentice programme, the BSc Nursing (all fields) programme, the MSc in Nursing (Graduate entry) programme and the MBA in Leadership in Healthcare. In addition to this I support clinical skills training in the simulation suites, am a personal tutor and academic assessor for practice assessment.

My specialist fields are leadership, safety science, human factors, pharmacology and medicines management, recognising deterioration (basic, intermediate and advanced life support and ALERT), clinical skills and care planning and assessment.

Research interests

My research interests fall into two broad fields:

1. Clinical nursing practice

2. Human factors and Patient safety

Research groups:

·    Innovations in Patient Care and Quality (ImPACT) research group

·    eHealth Productivity and Innovation in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Project (EPIC)

Plymouth Institute for Health and Care Research (PIHR)

Other research

PhD Research

My PhD aims to explore the concept of resilience within the context of nurse medication administration practice in an in-patient setting, through multiple studies using mixed methods. The specific objectives of the PhD include:

1. Synthesis of the existing evidence base relevant to resilience in medication administration
2. Empirical study of resilience in nurse medication administration using a mixed methods approach
3. Develop and validate definitions, models and measures to promote resilience in medication administration

My systematic review has identified an array of resilient principles and practices from nurses administering medication, (as well as identifying the effectiveness of some of these practices), in the context of every day clinical care in a highly complex and demanding environment. The development of a novel definition of resilience as it applies to nurse medication administration is an additional output from the review. Resilient adaptive practices identify ‘work-as-done’ and aim to maintain patient safety and efficiency. However, findings suggest that they can have a negative patient effect and are sometimes referred to as violations. Where these relate to policies and protocols, they have particularly sensitive implications. These areas warrant further investigation. My next two research stages will be empirical research. Study 2 is a mixed methods exploration and testing of the application of resilience in medication administration in a UK case study site. This will be followed by study 3 where an intervention of any novel resilience-sensitive protocol, model, or intervention is planned.

Outcomes from the research would expect to find generalizable data relatable to most nurses and other settings, such as outpatient chemotherapy, day case interventions and primary care. The unique contribution is taking resilience practices arising from everyday clinical work and aligning them with current safe systems, a safety –II approach to quality improvement, whereby resilience and flexibility act as necessary resources to maintain patient safety.