The ICON study (Impact of COVID-19 on Nurses)

COVID-19 placed additional and extreme demands on an already overstretched UK nursing workforce. The pandemic bought additional challenges such as limited access to PPE, contagion fears and for many redeployment with inadequate training and the additional pressures this bought. The impact of COVID-19 on nurses (ICON) qualitative study sought to examine in-depth how nurses were affected by working through the COVID-19 pandemic. Fifty nurses from a range of nursing settings and geographical locations were involved with the study over 2 years and were interviewed up to 4 times. The study, led by Professor Jill Maben, identified the traumatic and distressing working practices that nurses experienced. Nurses worked in altered care-landscapes with more critically ill and dying patients and many nurses reporting trauma which significantly impacted their mental health causing some to change roles or leave the profession.

Find out more about the study here.

EXPOSED: Nursing Narratives

‘Exposed’ is a groundbreaking documentary directed by Ken Fero that combines the stories of 19 Black, brown and migrant nurses and midwives to speak about their powerful experiences of racism before, during and after the pandemic. It emerged from an inter-disciplinary research project, Nursing Narratives – Racism and the Pandemic, undertaken by academics from the Culture and Creativity Research Institute and the College of Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences at Sheffield Hallam University and led by Professor Anandi Ramamurthy. It was awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council following UKRI’s call for projects to explore the impact of Covid-19.