Developing a high-performance support workforce in acute care: innovation, evaluation and engagement

Background: A long-standing component of the nursing workforce, the nurse support worker has recently emerged as the main bedside presence. However, as support workers are unregistered employees, positioned at Agenda for Change pay bands 2 to 4 and assisting registered nurses, there has been caution regarding their use. This caution has deepened just at the point when the cost pressures facing the NHS have prompted trust managers to reconsider how they organise their nursing workforces. Building upon previous, largely diagnostic studies, the current project explores how trusts have sought to change their approach to nurse support workers. In so doing, the research contributes to an applied and forward-looking agenda on the use and management of such workers in the current challenging times.