Name: Dr Polly Livermore

Job Title: NIHR BRC Clinical Academic Programme Lead / Rheumatology Matron

Career Background: Children’s Nurse with 25 years of clinical experience in a variety of roles from Staff nurse, Clinical Research Nurse, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Sister and Matron, at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital

Current Research: I am undertaking a NIHR Development and Skills Enhancement Award to workup a post doctoral fellowship understanding the needs of parents/carers whose children are diagnosed with Rheumatological conditions

Research Experience : I am a qualitative, creative researcher, with a passion for phenomenology, rheumatology and research with children and young people

Funding: NIHR CDRF (completed) and NIHR DSE award (ongoing)

One great thing that your profession has achieved for Nursing and Midwifery practice: Nurses are the glue that keeps the NHS going

Statement:

The highlight of my Clinical Academic Career so far has been creating research poems from children and young people’s interview transcripts and watching their reactions when they read them to themselves, to their parents, to their siblings and to their friends. The poetry enabled them to have a powerful tool to show how they feel and to finally gain understanding from those around them (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08893675.2020.1694210). This work came from my NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship which was a mixed methods, sequential exploratory designed study in four phases, working with children and young people with the rare, life threatening autoimmune condition – Juvenile Dermatomyositis. This work led to the metaphor of a rollercoaster to illustrate the journey from diagnosis to daily living with this chronic disease (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31215480/). None of my work to date would have been possible without the amazing PPIE support along the way and now with a large group being instrumental in my co-design study improving parents education, support and well-being. I am passionate about improving research skills, knowledge and confidence in all clinical nurses, to truly embed evidence based practice, but also to inspire the next generation of nurses to want to lead their own research endeavors. I run an internship programme whereby I teach on all things research to nurses and allied health professionals in my Trust, with the best output being when nurses are successful at NIHR fellowships.