Dr Cara Bailey PhD, RN, MN, PGCert(LTHE)

Dr Cara Bailey

School of Nursing
Postgraduate Research Lead
Senior Lecturer

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 3657
Email
c.bailey.2@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Clinical Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Cara Bailey is a Senior lecturer and Postgraduate Research Lead for the School of Nursing within the College of Medical and Dental Sciences.

Cara is a qualified nurse with most of her clinical experience being in the Emergency Department. Her research expertise is in end of life care, particularly on palliative care crisis, quality of end of life care and outcome measurement in supportive care. Current research projects include reducing palliative care admissions in ED, preferred place of care and decision making and the support of informal carers caring for the dying at home.

Cara has published in Scientific journals, academic books and disseminated at conferences and seminars nationally and internationally. She holds an honorary Professorship at Johns Hopkins University, US.

Cara leads BRHUmB, a research hub for palliative care in the West Midlands and works collaboratively with academics, clinicians, stakeholders and the public in health and social care on research for patient improvement and benefit.

Qualifications

  • PhD (University of Nottingham)
  • MN (University of Nottingham)
  • RGN (University of Nottingham)
  • PGCert(LTHE) (University of Birmingham)

Biography

Cara entered the nursing profession in 1999 and has a background in emergency care. She qualified with a Master’s Degree in Nursing in 2003 from The University of Nottingham, England and moved to Southampton to work in the Emergency Department. She returned to The University of Nottingham in 2005 and was awarded a PhD in 2009. The focus of her Doctorate was end of life care in the Emergency Department. She has since focused her post-doctoral work investigating end of life care with emergency settings in addition to other areas of end of life research.  

Cara contributes to the development, delivery and evaluation of education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She has developed a new MSc Advanced Clinical Practice and developed standalone CPD module aimed at nurses across a range of clinical settings.

Cara maintains her clinical practice working within the hospice and also maintains her clinical links with Emergency Department at QEUHBT.   

Teaching

Cara leads a number of postgraduate modules and contributes to teaching in research, leadership, end of life and palliative care, self awareness and resilience coaching and clinical skills, predominately on the following programmes :  

Cara designs and delivers a postgraduate research events programme to PhD students in the School of Nursing including monthly seminars, masterclasses and journal clubs.

Postgraduate supervision

Cara has experience in supervising at postgraduate level at both Master’s and PhD level and has supported students conducting research projects through to successful completion. She is interested in supervising projects related to:

  • End of life care
  • Nurse-patient relationships
  • End of life care education
  • Measuring quality of supportive care
  • Models of Social care and end of life care

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Cara on the contact details above or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings  

Research

Cara’s research focuses on the care of people at the end of their lives beyond cancer in palliative and end of life studies and for those who work closely with the dying, the bereaved and the critically ill. She currently work across four research areas:

  • end of life care in the Emergency Department
  • the quality of end of life care in the community and hospital settings
  • educational support for nurses caring for the dying and managing emotional labour
  • the economies of end of life care and measuring quality of end of life care

Spanning these topic areas is a further methodological interest of qualitative research, in particular the ethical and practical challenges of including patients near the end of life in qualitative research.

Other activities

  • Reviewer for Journal of Advanced Nursing
  • Reviewer for Journal of Emergency Nursing 
  • Works clinically as a nurse and registered with Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (July 2005 - Present)
  • Member/Researcher of End of life research group. The University of Birmingham (August 2009 - present).  
  • Association for the Study of Death and Society (ASDS) September 2009 - Present)
  • Peer Reviewer for Journal of Advanced Nursing (August 2011-Present)  
  • Steering Committee Member: Making sense of death and dying. Interdisplinary.net (November 2011-Present)
  • Breathe Easy User Involvement Group Facilitator (April 2012 - Present)
  • Care Collaborative (Previously MaCPacc Collaborative) (November 2012 - Present) 
  • EconEndLife Advisory Group member (April 2013 - Present)
  • Higher Education Academy Fellow (August 2013)  
  • The International Health Economics Association (IHEA) member (March 2014)

Expertise

End-of-life care, particularly improving care at the end-of-life in the Emergency Department; preparing nurses to manage the emotional aspects of caring for the dying