Biography

As Professor of Nursing Research, I hold a joint appointment with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where I have responsibility for leading the strategic development of nursing research and evidence-based practice initiatives. I also hold the position of Adjunct Professor in Transcultural Nursing at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

During a professional career spanning 30 years, I have held a variety of clinical nursing posts in both community and hospital settings in the UK and Zambia and gained experience teaching in under-graduate and graduate nurse education in several UK universities. I have contributed to research grants and awards totalling £23.7 million. I am currently the Implementation Lead for the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Allied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) for South Yorkshire, a five year programme of applied research and implementation of research findings in the self-management of long-term conditions. I have published widely in my field and co-edited the 6th edition of The Research Process in Nursing, a major research text for nurses in the UK.

Research Interests

My research interests focus in knowledge translation, nursing development and transcultural nursing.

Teaching Interests

My teaching interests are in the areas of evidence-based practice, transcultural nursing and nursing development. I also teach qualitative research methodologies.

Professional activities

I serve on several national committees including the Academy of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting Research, Clinical Innovation and Research Committee of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the NIHR CLAHRC Directors Forum. I am a member of the Nursing Executive Group and Research Executive Committee at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. In 2002, I was elected Chair of the Research Society of the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom, a position I held until 2010. I am on the editorial board of three nursing journals and act as a reviewer for a number of academic journals and grant proposals on behalf of national and international funding bodies.

Current projects

• Enhancing the quality of oral nutrition support for adults with long-term conditions: evaluating strategies for knowledge translation
• Improving the multidisciplinary care and management of patients at risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE)
• Tinkering and tailoring: understanding the trajectory of complex innovation in healthcare settings
• Exploring scale-up, spread and sustainability: tracing a health care innovation about dysphagia
• Achieving a high quality, fully integrated falls service in Sheffield: A Clinical Microsystems nurse led redesign
• The Sheffield Microsystem coaching academy: developing microsystem coaching capability to achieve transformation in health care systems
• Towards equitable commissioning for our multiethnic society: understanding and enhancing the critical utilisation of evidence by strategic commissioners and public health managers
• A pluralistic evaluation of advanced practice nurses
• Approaches to assessing the impact of nurse consultants

Key publications

Gerrish K, Naisby A, Ismail I (2012) The meaning and consequences of tuberculosis among Somali people in the United Kingdom. Journal of Advanced Nursing Epub ahead of print doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2012.05964.x

Kennedy F., McDonnell A., Gerrish K., Howarth A., Pollard C. & Redman J. (2012). Evaluation of the impact of nurse consultant roles in the United Kingdom: a mixed method systematic literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 68:4 721-42 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05811.x

Gerrish K, McDonnell A, Nolan M, Guillaume L, Kirshbaum M, Tod A (2011) The role of Advanced Practice Nurses in knowledge brokering as a means of promoting evidence-based practice among clinical nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing 67(9) –2004-2014 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05642.x

Gerrish K, Guillaume L, Kirshbaum M, McDonnell A, Tod A, Nolan M (2011) Factors influencing the contribution of advanced practice nurses to promoting evidence-based practice among front-line nurses: findings from a cross-sectional survey. Journal of Advanced Nursing 67(5) 1079-1090

Gerrish K, Ashworth P, Lacey A, Bailey J, Cooke J, Kendall S, McNeilly E (2007) Factors influencing the development of evidence-based practice: a research tool Journal of Advanced Nursing 57 (3), 328–338.