End of data collection

Friday saw the last of my interviews. I have completed 20 in all. across 9 counties of England with 13 staff from the NHS, 3 people who have retired and 4 who work in non NHS settings. In relation to length of career there were nurses representing all of the decades from the 60's through to 2008.

A range of diverse roles were represented - specialist nurses within the NHS including health facilitation roles, acute liaison roles, inpatient and non inpatient services. There were also management and leadership roles represented - a modern matron, locality manager, lead for public health and commissioning lead. In non NHS roles there were managers from within social services and the independent sector.

I have felt honoured to be able to listen to peoples stories of their careers and many of them echoed my own experiences.

The next phase is thematic analysis

A challenge too far!

The online interviews are off for this project. I just havent been able to get over the issue of blocks and firewalls. Most people of course want to undertake the interviews during working time and during the testing phase I cannot find a 'chat room' environment that the various firewalls will let in. There are systems through which I can develop my own but the time and technological skills required is not something that I have for this project.

So although the online interviews were a potential tool for follow ups I will be using email as an asynchronous route for any follow ups I need.

Thats the bad news .... next post the good news