Professor Maeve Lowery:

We know there is a staffing crisis in healthcare at the moment. It is very hard to recruit enough nurses and doctors, especially junior doctors, in our public hospital system. It is becoming a less attractive place to work across the board. That was true before the pandemic and it is even more the case now. It is becoming difficult. Research can help. The way we solve that problem is by making those jobs more attractive and integrating research into the careers of nurses and doctors. Providing adequate time to pursue research makes a job more enriching and makes people happier and more fulfilled in their jobs. People do not do these jobs for the money. Making the job more attractive would help with staffing, which is a major crisis at the moment.