In 2017, South London Hospices Education Collaborative approached the University of Greenwich to conduct an evaluation of the first year of the ‘Rotational Post - End of Life Care, Cancer and Care of the Elderly’ Project. The original project had offered newly-qualified and developing band 5 nurses (within 3 years of qualifying) the opportunity to work in three care settings over the course of a year (4 month blocks) with support from palliative care professionals, managers and the project lead. The nurses also undertook a postgraduate module in palliative care or a relevant topic. The identified care settings were - specialist inpatient palliative care in hospices, oncology wards, and care of the frail elderly in intermediate care settings or similar community provision.
The evaluation began in September 2017 and its aim was to evaluate the perceived and felt impact of the project as assessed by the nurses who took part and the key staff (stakeholders) in the host organisations. Qualitative focus groups (with participating nursing staff) and interviews (with stakeholders) were conducted and analysed to assess the perceived impact the project had on stakeholders’ and participating nurses’ perceptions and experiences of the rotation project, and whether the project had, according to participants’ accounts, attained its original aims.
The data presented in this report are the outcome of gathering and analysing data from two focus groups (N = 7 & 5 participants) with nurses who rotated during the project, and seven interviews with stakeholder participants who rotated their own, and hosted other organisations’, staff
