An update on the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals implementation group 

In this blog, Professor Jane Coad shares an update on the establishment of the NMAHP implementation group following the publication of the OSCHR report, “Clinical researchers in the United Kingdom: Building capacity to improve population health and promote economic growth”, and its achievements so far within four key areas of Metrics, Partnerships, Funding and Career frameworks.

In July 2025 a report commissioned by the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) was published: Clinical researchers in the United Kingdom: Building capacity to improve population health and promote economic growth. The report followed the January 2025, Clinical researchers in the United Kingdom: Reversing the decline to improve population health and promote economic growth.  

The July 2025 report, focused on issues and steps to increase the opportunities for Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals to develop careers in research, enable clinical staff to gain research skills and experience and set outs the need to build strong and supportive research cultures threaded through our health and higher education systems to encourage and sustain high-quality research and innovation.  

The report focused on five action areas addressing the key challenges around increasing the number of clinical academics, providing flexible and accessible career pathways, supportive environments and adequate funding for those wanting to pursue clinical academic careers throughout the UK, and addressing significant gaps in data which limits the monitoring of the clinical academic landscape in the UK.  

Following on, the Council of Deans has been very active and invited Professor Jane Coad, Chair of the Clinical Academic Roles Implementation Network (CARIN), as a Strategic Lead for Clinical Academics in the Council of Deans of Health to chair the NMAHP Implementation Group. Senior representation and stakeholders from across all four UK countries were convened in order to address the proposed actions but also to coordinate with other ongoing work to strengthen clinical academic careers in other fields, including medicine.  

The Council of Deans of Health have supported the NMAHP Implementation Group with early successes including:  

METRICS – Working with key stakeholders and decision makers to improve the collation of context-specific data on the number and distribution of clinical academics from the NMAHP professions where ever the contract are held. 

FUNDING – Integral to newly convened national Cross-Funding group (led by Academy of Medical Sciences) which is supported by key UK funders of research. In addition, NMAHP stakeholder events have taken place. All activities are enabling the sharing of funder information and calls to benefit all Health Care Professionals.  

PARTNERSHIPS – In the current climate, strong clinical academic partnerships, at a local and regional level, are essential to the strategic development of new clinical academic positions. There are many examples of positive partnerships and the NMAHP Implementation Group are working on qualities of a good partnership to support the culture and environment that supports sustainable clinical academic careers for NMAHPs.  

CAREER FRAMEWORKS – endorsing national new Clinical Academic Framework and conduct  stakeholder reviews to align what this means for NMAHPS. This is important in embedding clear research career routes to enable the number of NMAHP clinical academics to scale up across the four countries of the UK.  

This is important work for NMAHP Clinical Academics. We have been able to convene a talented NMAHP Implementation Group where passion and determination is making change, in some cases for the first time. We are building on the many examples where NMAHPs are supported to influence changes for all at local and national level and we hope beyond.