Blog
Changing the narrative on suicide and revisioning nurse regulation
In September last year, on World Suicide Prevention Day 2025, colleagues on the team wrote a powerful blog piece called Revisioning the Narrative.
World Suicide Prevention Day this year continues the theme of changing the narrative on suicide, which is so aligned with our work.
More Than a Story
Since my father died by suicide, I have drawn on my lived and living experience, including my own suicidality, suicide bereavement and supporting people I love, to influence service improvements and help professionals understand how people can be better supported.
I undertook a Churchill Fellowship to explore how we could gather people’s lived experience better.
Taking a closer look at Nursing
As the next stage of our research commences, we turn our attention to exploring nurses’ experiences of stress, distress and suicidality. Whilst all elements of our study are interested in women nurses’ psychological wellbeing and health, we are taking a closer, in some senses ‘deeper’, look at the everyday experiences of individual nurses.
Redefining Resilience & belonging in a shifting landscape
Friday 6th March 2026 marks Overseas NHS Workers' Day, a celebration of the extraordinary contributions migrant health workers make to the NHS and to the United Kingdom and to honour the deep commitment, expertise, strength and diversity they bring to the health and social care workforce. Angela Kumar explores what resilience means for migrant health workers in the face of changing political and cultural climates.
Why take a gendered approach to understanding violence and abuse?
This year, Tuesday 25th November was White Ribbon Day: a day that seeks to raise awareness of the global epidemic of violence against women and girls. White Ribbon Day is also the start of a sixteen-day period of campaigning and awareness raising about violence against women and girls, sometimes referred to as the 16 Days of Action. This year the campaign will end on Wednesday 10th December.
Revisioning the narrative
The theme for this years World Suicide Prevention Day is Changing the Narrative on Suicide. It is a theme that aligns well with the focus of our research on suicide in women nurses. We use the word ‘revisioning’ in the title of our Wellcome Trust funded study to describe our groundbreaking and transformative approach.
Creative connections – pathways to repair and recovery from moral injury
On 1st June 2015 I found myself unexpectedly unbusy, sent on “gardening leave” and unemployable. This blog is my reflection on my experience of presenting poems about my nursing career at an academic conference and how I found myself compelled to share this work.
Far from home, close to purpose
A personal journey of growth, identity, and career as a nurse in the UK.
Articulating our value base
Sharing the value base that drives us individually and collectively, and will underpin our work.
Celebrating and Supporting Internationally Qualified Nurses
For this NHS Overseas Workers Day, we focus on Internationally Qualified Nurses working in the NHS; their contributions, challenges and how our work is addressing this.
Your views matter
We want to hear different viewpoints on why there are higher rates of suicide in women nurses.
Why a feminist perspective?
To understand suicidality among women nurses, we must investigate the political, social, and economic conditions that nurses work and live within.
Why is women’s distress classed as an illness?
This blog explores why women’s distress is more likely to be seen as illness and what this means for women, and why this is relevant to women nurses.
What feminism means to me
Welcome to the first blog of our series, ‘What feminism means to me’. We will be inviting a range of contributors to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences on this topic.
Our first contributor is Leo Conolly.
Don’t give us a sticking plaster
About a month ago I saw an advert about the healthcare workers' mental health crisis in the UK: healthcare scenarios followed by individual shots of healthcare workers being overcome with emotion in various places. I was pleased to see such a successful film had been made and was receiving widespread coverage when the jarring tag lines drifted onto the screen.
Why ‘only’ women nurses?
We have been asked why our research focuses solely on women nurses.
We have given a great deal of consideration to the design of the studies within this project, including consulting with nurses and our project stakeholders. We made the decision to focus specifically on women nurses for a range of reasons and in this blog I will focus on three of these.
Supporting bereaved healthcare workers.
My name is Jules Lewis and I am a Swan End of Life Care Lead Nurse at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust and PhD Student at Staffordshire University. I am also bereaved by suicide, my beautiful best friend Janet took her own life in February 2019 aged 47, a caring and compassionate friend and nurse for over 20 years. I set up, with the support from our lead volunteer & our administrator, a staff bereavement support service at the hospital where I work.
On the death of a colleague.
Working with individuals who experience suicidal ideation or intent is an integral aspect of mental health, and it is probable that all registered nurses working in this field will come across a person in this situation at some point, irrespective of the specific area in which they develop their career. As an RMN working in a crisis resolution team, this was a common concern. I took professional pride in my ability to assess risk and provide something of use to that person based on their need at that precise moment. And then I had a colleague and friend end her life.
How our understanding of context informs our understanding of nurse suicide; and why we need change.
There are 30 million nurses world-wide and the NHS, the largest employer in Europe, employs more women than any other organisation. It is also the principal employer of nurses of whom, 89% are women and one in four are from the global ethnic majority. Yet, the majority of suicide research and policy is gender- and colour-blind.