Burdett Trust for Nursing

To provide a framework for the production of policy briefs, and offer a practical example of how evidence can be turned into a succinct document to inform policy and bring about change targeted at delivering universal health coverage. Policymakers are too busy, or do not have the necessary expertise, to read and comprehend complex scientific papers. As a result, policy briefs that capture and present the essential points are needed if evidence-informed policy is to be developed and implemented. A two-page example of how evidence from meta-analytical and systematic reviews can be presented to identify options and recommendations to address a major global disease burden. The example uses a simple, seven-section template for developing a policy brief. The essential characteristics of each section are provided. The briefing, targeted at the global level, provides information on the major challenges associated with the treatment of individuals with diabetes. This paper demonstrates how to use existing research evidence to address the pursuit of UHC relevant to a wide range of geographies, settings or disadvantaged groups. Gaps in universal health coverage and major disease burdens such as diabetes can be pursued through entities such as country-based Nursing Now groups. In addition, ongoing opportunities exist through the International Council of Nurses annual International Nurses Day and WHO's regular regional meetings to inform and influence policy discussions at national and subnational levels. By focusing on a small number of global topics each year, measurable changes in addressing the burden of disease can be achieved while simultaneously keeping the nursing profession's contribution centre stage.

This study explores how scholarship relating to meta-analytical studies and systematic and integrative reviews can inform nursing's contribution to universal health coverage. As nursing globally embraces the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the Nursing Now social movement has called for the profession to improve universal health coverage through increasing nursing's policy voice. In determining how the Nursing Now social movement could pursue the aim of this study, researchers undertook a comparative bibliometric analysis of scholarship relating to the systematic curation of evidence. This study uses a mixed-method analysis of the bibliometric data available through extracting and synthesizing information from one of the commercially produced indexing and citation databases. Generally, medicine has contributed far more synthesized contributions than nursing, except in the case of integrative reviews. Co-occurrence analysis of nursing literature through examination of key terms yielded a complex visualization of 11 specific clusters of scholarship (Care of the Older Person, Nurse Education, Emergency and Critical Care, Occupational Health and Safety, Rural Services, Anxiety and Depression, Measurement, Newborn and Post-natal Health, Cardiovascular Disease, Preventative Health and Cancer Care). Bibliometric analysis of curated evidence demonstrates that there is ample nursing-relevant material to inform evidence-based policy change directed towards the attainment of universal health coverage and several of the Sustainable Development Goals. Nursing literature is available to support policy change directed towards the pursuit of universal health coverage and sustainable development goals. Leveraging existing networks of research collaboration to increase research capacity through communities of scholarship or by twinning experienced and neophyte contributors is possible. Further work is needed to equip nurses with the competencies to navigate the policy environment and develop and deliver impactful policy messaging.

Mary Watkins, Ray Jones and Sue Norman discuss two reports commissioned by the Burdett trust for nursing on how to ensure that the care of patients is at the top of trust board agendas