Jane Ball

Jane has been researching nursing workforce issues since 1990 when she worked for the health team at the Institute for Employment Studies, University of Sussex. Much of her research focuses on the working lives of nurses. From 2000 to 2009 (whilst working with Employment Research) she led the a large scale national annual survey of nurses, funded by the RCN, which explored the employment characteristics and views of nurses across the UK.

Other research has focused on workforce planning in healthcare and the dynamics of the nursing workforce, for example undertaking work for the WHO to explore the approaches to planning skill-mix. Through RN4Cast study (an EU funded project covering 15 countries), and similar studies, she continued to research the nature of the relationship between nurse staffing levels and patient outcomes. RN4Cast looked at how an understanding of these relationships can enhance nurse workforce planning. She went on (funded by NIHR CLAHRC Wessex) to study the provision of Fundamental Care in hospitals, and explore the barriers and enablers to effective care delivery.

As part of the Magnet4Europe study, she's leading a team to further examine the relationship between work pressure, burnout and sickness absence. The project uses a trial methodology to explore how adopting a system wide quality improvement might impact on the wellbeing of nurses and doctors in acute hospitals.