Doing a nursing PhD inside the NHS trust that employs you is possible, and the sequence matters: define whether your study is research, confirm the approval route with your trust’s R&D office and the Health Research Authority tools, agree time and access in writing, and design your role as an insider researcher on paper before you recruit a single colleague.
Why is a nursing PhD in your own trust a different project?
A nursing PhD in your own employer has a particular advantage and a particular risk. The advantage is access: you know the wards, the vocabulary and the people, and you can ask questions that an outsider would take months to learn to ask. The risk is that you are simultaneously a colleague, a clinician and a researcher, and each of those roles has duties that can conflict. Examiners and ethics reviewers know this, so a thesis that ignores it reads as naive, while a thesis that designs for it reads as expert.
This guide gives the steps in order. It sits beside how to write the methodology chapter of a nursing PhD thesis, which covers designs and analysis, and the objections examiners raise on nursing theses, which includes governance and clinical-opinion problems that insider projects are especially prone to.
Step 1: Decide what kind of project you actually have
Write one sentence stating whether your project is research, a service evaluation or an audit, and then check that sentence against the Health Research Authority’s decision tools, not against a colleague’s memory. A PhD must make an original contribution to knowledge, so most doctoral projects are research, but a project that began as a service improvement within your own team may have been designed as an evaluation, and you cannot simply relabel it later. The HRA runs a set of decision tools, including a student research tool that includes an eligibility step for the level of qualification. Under that tool, a PhD or equivalent is listed as eligible, which means a doctoral project can go through the NHS approval route where it needs one.
Step 2: Confirm the approval route, and do not assume that being staff exempts you
The HRA’s page on what approvals you need says that for research including questionnaire and interview studies and qualitative research you need to apply for HRA Approval. Studies that recruit NHS staff, patients or both can sit on different routes, so the question to put to your trust’s research and development (R&D) office and your university sponsor is specific: which approvals does this design, with this recruitment method, need? Ask in writing and keep the answer, because the methods chapter has to state it. The methods side of governance, including IRAS, research passports and reporting standards, is set out in the nursing methodology guide linked above, and the wider UK picture for non-clinical routes is in ethics approval for a sociology or social work PhD.
If your project also depends on timelines for approval, building a PhD thesis timeline with ethics approval lead time shows how to put regulator windows into a Gantt-style plan; the principle transfers to nursing even though that article is written for clinical medicine.
Step 3: Check whether you need a research passport
This is the point on which candidates most often assume the wrong thing. The HRA’s research passport page says a research passport is required for non-NHS staff to obtain an honorary research contract or letter of access when they propose to carry out research in the NHS. It lists several cases where you do not need one, and the first is that you are employed by an NHS organisation. Another is having an honorary clinical contract with an NHS trust and doing the research within that same trust, with a letter of access needed if you research at a different trust.
That has two consequences for an insider project. If you carry out the whole study in your own employer, you are unlikely to need a passport for it, but you should still ask the R&D office what local arrangements they require. If you plan to extend the study to a second trust, for example to recruit at a comparison site, you should plan for the access documents that the second trust will require, and that is a timeline item, not a last-minute detail.
Step 4: Agree time, access and data with your employer in writing
Local R&D review and your own line management are separate hurdles from regulatory approval. Before recruitment, get written agreement on four things.
- Protected time. When and how much of your working time is available for research, and what happens to clinical rota commitments.
- Access to staff. Which teams you may approach, through whom, and whether recruitment emails can go through trust channels.
- Access to data. Which records or datasets you may use, under what conditions, and who is responsible for them. Your access as a clinician is for care, and it does not automatically extend to research.
- Outputs. Who sees the findings first, and what you will say if the results are critical of the organisation. Agreeing this early prevents later disputes.
A comparable set of agreements for a doctorate embedded in an employer, in the technology sector, is described in doing a PhD inside your own tech employer; the structure is similar even though the sector differs.
Step 5: Design your insider role before you recruit
An insider researcher is a member of the group being studied. Dwyer and Buckle (2009), “The Space Between: On Being an Insider-Outsider in Qualitative Research” in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, discuss whether qualitative researchers should be members of the population they study and examine the strengths and challenges of each status. Unluer (2012), “Being an Insider Researcher While Conducting Case Study Research” in The Qualitative Report, examines the advantages and disadvantages of the insider role in a case study. Both are citable, short and directly relevant to a methods chapter.
Turn that reading into design decisions.
- Separate the roles. Decide how you will signal to participants whether you are speaking as a researcher or a colleague, for example through the information sheet and the setting of interviews.
- Manage power. If you supervise or line-manage potential participants, do not recruit them directly. Have a third party make the first approach and make refusal easy and free of consequence.
- Keep care and research apart. If a participant discloses a safety concern, your professional duties continue. Say in your protocol what you will do, and tell participants in advance.
- Keep a reflexive diary. A dated record of your assumptions, reactions and decisions is evidence that you managed your position, and an extract in an appendix is persuasive in a viva.
Step 6: Build supervision that covers both worlds
Your university supervisors know the methodology and the thesis requirements; they may not know your trust’s governance or politics. Many insider projects benefit from a supervisor or advisor inside the trust who can help with access and local approval, and from agreeing at the outset who decides what. The mechanics of running a multi-person team are covered in how to manage your PhD supervisory team.
Step 7: Worked example, with risks and mitigations
This is an illustrative case, not a real study. A ward manager in a hospital trust plans a qualitative PhD on how newly qualified nurses experience preceptorship on their own and neighbouring wards. The table sets out the main risks of the insider position and a mitigation for each.
| Risk | Why it matters | Mitigation written into the protocol |
|---|---|---|
| Participants report to the researcher | Consent may not be freely given | Recruit only from wards the researcher does not manage; a colleague issues the invitations |
| Researcher hears a safety concern in an interview | Professional duties continue during research | Participant information sheet states the limits of confidentiality; a procedure for escalation is agreed with the R&D office |
| Findings may criticise the preceptorship programme the researcher helped design | Bias in interpretation | Disclose the researcher’s role in the programme; a second coder analyses a sample of transcripts |
| Researcher can see staff records | Access for care is not access for research | No access to personnel or clinical records beyond those named in the approved protocol |
| Participants may assume managerial interest | Social desirability in answers | Interviews held away from the ward; data stored under codes; reporting at group level |
Step 8: Write it up so the methods chapter does the defending for you
The methods chapter of an insider thesis should include five statements. First, a positionality statement that names your role in the trust and what it gave you and cost you. Second, the governance route: the approvals obtained, with committee references, and the local R&D permission. Third, the access arrangements: who agreed what, and how participants were approached. Fourth, the steps you took to separate your roles, including your reflexive practice. Fifth, the limits that remain, stated as limitations. A short example of a positionality sentence, illustrative only, is: “I was employed as a ward manager in the trust during data collection, and I did not recruit from wards I managed, because I considered that my managerial role could affect participants’ freedom to decline.” The concrete reason is what turns a disclosure into evidence of rigour. The same pattern of evidence, rather than assertion, runs through the examiner objections linked at the start of this guide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do my nursing PhD research in the trust that employs me?
Yes, and many nursing doctorates do. It needs the right approvals, the agreement of your employer and a clear separation between your clinical role and your researcher role.
Do I need a research passport if I am an NHS employee?
The Health Research Authority says a research passport is for non-NHS staff who need an honorary research contract or letter of access, and lists being employed by an NHS organisation among the cases where you do not need one. Confirm with your trust’s R&D office.
Do doctoral students qualify for HRA approval and NHS ethics review?
The HRA’s student research decision tool treats a PhD or equivalent as eligible, so a doctoral project can go through the NHS approval route where one is needed.
Is a questionnaire or interview study with NHS staff exempt from approval?
Do not assume so. The HRA lists questionnaire and interview studies and qualitative research among the studies that need HRA Approval, so use the HRA decision tools and your R&D office to confirm the route for your recruitment method.
What is insider research?
Research in which the researcher is a member of the group or organisation being studied. It has advantages in access and understanding and disadvantages in bias and power relations, which Dwyer and Buckle (2009) and Unluer (2012) discuss.
Can I recruit my own colleagues or patients?
Sometimes, but power relations and consent need careful design. Approvals will ask how participants will be protected from feeling obliged to take part, and examiners will ask the same question.
Who should supervise an insider project?
A university supervisor with methodological expertise, plus someone in the trust who can help with governance and access. Agree in writing who decides what, and see your university’s guidance on supervisory teams.
Do I need permission from my line manager?
Yes. Time for research, access to staff and use of any trust data all need agreement, ideally in writing, and local R&D review will expect it.
What should the methods chapter say about my insider position?
State your role, how you separated it from your clinical duties, how you handled power relations and what reflexive practice you used, with evidence such as a reflexive diary extract in an appendix.
Can examiners reject an insider study for bias?
They may query it, and a thesis that addresses insider position directly and openly is much easier to defend than one that ignores it.
Keeping a clinical job and a thesis moving
An insider project is slowed less by the research than by the juggling of roles, approvals and shifts. Tesify is used by 9,000+ students across 15,000+ chapters to organise a thesis chapter by chapter, and the thesis stays 100% written by you. The governance statements, the positionality and the findings are yours; a chapter plan helps you see where each of them has to appear.