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Abstract

Healthcare provision centres around providing the best available treatment for ‘Mrs Jones’. Research and evidence-based practice (EBP) are key underpinning components in achieving a best outcome and it is with these tools that we look to refine and develop our clinical practice. Full consideration however, needs to be given to the environment in which these approaches are both applied and delivered. Of the 1.3 million staff employed within the UK National Health Service , ‘medics’ – (whilst instigating the majority of treatment regimes in modern healthcare services), comprise less than 10% of the workforce. An ‘unseen-majority’ undertake the support and implementation of clinical objectives, and yet the differing levels of professionalism, academic development and comprehension, prohibits a standard approach to developing EBP. Unless research and education is adapted to meet a range of employment strata, there is little likelihood of an engaged and integrated approach to medicine and its paramedical disciplines. EBP serves to empower and equip staff at all levels. As such, any simplification of its approach should not be viewed as the ‘dilution’ of research science, but an inclusionist approach that promotes a broader subscription to the common healthcare ethic - we all want what is best for ‘Mrs Jones’.

Available Versions of this Item

• Evidence-Based Practice - A means to empower the wider healthcare workforce Seminar-Workshop. (deposited 21 Feb 2008 18:39)