Introducing Nikki Cotterill, our new Post-Doc Nurse Fellow

19 July 2017

Dr Nikki Cotterill has recently joined CLAHRC West as our Post-Doc Nurse Fellow, a joint post with the University of the West of England’s Centre for Health and Clinical Research (CHCR). Here she tells us a bit about her career history and what she will be working on.

I qualified as a registered nurse in 1999 having trained at the University of the West of England and consolidated my training with posts in acute medicine and short stay surgery. For the past 14 years I have worked at the Bristol Urological Institute, North Bristol NHS Trust, in continence research with a strong emphasis on the patient experience. During this time, I completed my PhD at the University of Bristol, in which I developed a questionnaire to assess bowel incontinence from the patient’s perspective.

My three main areas of research activity have focussed on:

  • Development of patient-reported outcome measures to provide patient-centred assessment of the symptoms of bladder and bowel incontinence and their impact on quality of life
  • Understanding patients’ and clinicians’ perspectives in randomised controlled trials evaluating treatments for incontinence
  • Exploring self-help strategies for individuals with bladder and bowel continence difficulties, most recently among individuals with Multiple Sclerosis

This is a new fellowship post which aims to bring together CLAHRC West and the Centre for Health and Clinical Research at the University of the West of England, to support the progress of health service research with a nursing focus.

I plan to explore inpatient continence care, to understand how improvements can be made to reduce barriers to discharge and improve the independence of patients, in relation to continence issues. I am extremely passionate about continence care and patient empowerment. I look forward to establishing projects that can facilitate growth in this area for improved health outcomes for all.