Dr Tessa Watts, Velindre Reader for Nursing and Interdisciplinary Cancer Care Research
I was delighted to be appointed to the role of Velindre Reader for Interdisciplinary Research at the end of January 2025. Cardiff is my home city. It is here that I went to school and where completed my initial nurse education, my MSc and my post graduate teacher training. I very much look forward to building on the foundational work of Professor Jane Hopkinson, who retired from the University last September, in this innovative, exciting and strategically important position.
I am a Registered Nurse (adult field), qualified teacher (adult education), Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE) and previous National Teaching Fellow nominee. I have a PhD from Swansea University and a BA (Hons) in social sciences from the University of London. I specialise in qualitative research, leading and collaborating with interdisciplinary teams on externally funded work in patients’ experiences of health care, service organisation and delivery and enhancement and nurses’ wellbeing.
In my research I draw on my academic grounding in the social sciences to develop practice insights and understandings. I am an experienced doctoral supervisor and examiner, research mentor and coach. I have 10 successful completions for PhD, MD and Professional Doctorate and am currently the Professional Doctorate (Nursing and Midwifery) External Examiner at Oxford Brookes University. I am also a National Institute of Health Research Future Research Leaders mentor, experienced grant reviewer (NIHR/RCBC/Worldwide Cancer Research/ Tenovus/ General Nursing Council Trust) and scientific reviewer for international conferences (International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care / NET/NEP). Previously I worked at Swansea University where I had senior research and education strategic and operational leadership roles relating to Nursing and AHPs and including cancer and palliative care. Prior moving into higher education I held practice and education roles within Marie Curie Cancer Care.
I am often on site at Velindre on Monday afternoons where I am sharing space in the Research and Development offices. Alternatively, I can be found in the coffee shop. You can contact me on my NHS and university e mails so please do reach out and get in touch. I am very keen to hear from you and about your research and innovation achievements and ideas and about how you think that we, as the Velindre Healthcare Support team, might best support and work with you in your research and innovation ideas and needs. I am happy to be in a role which enables me to support professional colleagues to develop and grow their own research or contribution to research whilst also supporting the cancer non-medical researchers of the future and improve patient outcomes and experiences.
Should you need to contact me, you can email me at either my Velindre University NHS Trust email address: Tessa.Watts@wales.nhs.uk or my Cardiff University email address: wattst1@cardiff.ac.uk.
Dr Tessa Watts Cardiff University web profile can be found at the following link: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/wattst1
I am a firm believer in the importance and value of clinical research which improves patient outcomes and lives, and the lives of those who matter most to them, and their experiences. The best research ideas come from practice and improving the evidence base for clinical practice in each of our respective professions is important. To make this happen it is important that we equip nurses, AHP’s, radiographers and pharmacists with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence to drive service innovation, improvement and research and enhance healthcare outcomes and patients’ experiences.
Research is very much a collective, team effort: ‘team science’ and I really enjoy working with multi-professional teams and the public to design, conduct and share research findings with clinical relevance that will benefit patients and those important to them. I am very much looking forward to meeting, working with and supporting nursing (and AHP) colleagues with research and innovation at Velindre University NHS Trust.
Early priorities and focus
My priorities for the first six months are to:
To achieve these my focus has been placed on the following
2.3.1 Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Fellowships
Introduction to Research
Two fellows have now completed their projects
Velindre PhD Fellows
2.3.2 Velindre Small Grants Scheme
Dr Jane Mathlin and Mansi Patil had an abstract accepted for an e poster presentation at the annual international Multinational Association for Supportive Cancer Care conference which was held in Lille, France.
2.3.3 Velindre Healthcare Research Community
A new programme of monthly hybrid seminars is up and running.
2.3.4 Publications
At least eleven publications involving Velindre Nurses and therapies staff in international peer reviewed and professional journals.
2.3.5 Conferences
At least ten conferences presentations at national and international conferences: Wales Cancer Research Centre, UKONS, MASCC, CSP. Annual Radiotherapy Conference, Macmillan Professionals Conference.
2.3.6 Awards
Velindre University NHS Trust: Innovative nurse-led post radiotherapy follow-up clinic
Finalist NT Cancer Nursing awards 2024
The Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Support Team are cancer research active staff employed by the School of Healthcare Sciences, Cardiff University. Professor Jane Hopkinson, the inaugural Velindre Professor of Nursing and Interdisciplinary Cancer Care retired from Cardiff University in September 2024. In late January 2025, Dr Tessa Watts, a registered Nurse, was appointed the Velindre Reader for Nursing and Interdisciplinary Cancer Care was appointed lead for the Collaboration going forward.
The research support team members are Dr Sarah Fry, Senior Lecturer in Nursing, Dr Nichola Gale, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy and Dr Nicolas Courtier, Senior Lecturer in Radiography, with administrative support provided by Mrs Zahida Azhar. All research team members are active researchers in cancer care and have track records of supporting doctoral students to completion, publication in international, high impact journals, leading and collaborating in externally funded research and presenting at conferences.
Each support team member provides one-to-one research mentoring and coaching for a Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Fellow. Team members are also available to offer other staff one-to-one consultancy on writing a funding bid, writing a research proposal, research design, project management, data analysis, and dissemination to include writing conference abstracts and writing for publication.
The team will have an exhibition stand at the Clinical and Scientific “Working Together” Conference on 12 May 2025 to raise awareness of the collaboration and the team’s role in supporting the Overarching Cancer Research and Development Ambitions Strategy 2021-31 and successes to date.
The Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Fellowship Scheme is an investment by the Velindre Charity to strengthen nurse and health professions leadership in safe and high-quality cancer care. The fellowships are open to nurses, allied health professionals, pharmacists, and radiographers, staff groups historically underserved by education and opportunity to drive research-based service improvement and innovation.
The Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Fellowship scheme will support career progression within the national competency framework for Advanced Practitioners. Advanced Practitioners have a research component to their job role, acting as Principal Investigator and/or Chief Investigator for research projects. The fellowship scheme will empower Velindre Advanced Practitioners to work at the top of their license and enable them to be clinical academics engaged in evidence based transformational leadership. This year two new research fellows, both Registered Nurses have joined Ceri Stubbs, the first Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Fellow.
Ceri Stubbs: Supervised by Dr Sarah Fry, Ceri is presently crafting her scoping review with a view to future publication. Dr Deb Edwards, Principal Research Fellow at Cardiff University and Associate Director Health and Care Research Wales Evidence Centre is providing expert support with Ceri’s review.
Alison Goodman: Supervised by Dr Nichola Gale, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, the focus of Alison’s PhD on investigating the relationship between evolving treatment paradigms in advanced lung cancer and patients’ needs relating to exercise.
Sarah Owen: Supervised by Dr Sarah Fry, Senior Lecturer in Nursing, the focus of Sarah’s PhD is on investigating barriers for adopting and embedding lessons learnt from patient safety incidents within a regional cancer centre.
The next call for Fellowship Applications will be made in the summer 2025.
Following a successful conference abstract submission, Velindre- Healthcare Research Assistant Manasi Patil presented an e-poster at the international Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) annual meeting in Lille, France in June 2024. The poster was an outcome of Dr Jane Mathlin’s research which was funded by the Velindre Small Grants scheme. The poster reported findings from Dr Mathlin’s feasibility study which focused on measuring taste change recovery post radiotherapy for head and neck cancer.
The conference was attended by over 1400 delegates from all over the world.
Manasi Patil reflected “Given the scale of the conference, Jane and I were honoured and excited to be able to attend and present our work. Our presentation was well received, and we had some great questions at the end.
"The conference provided me with a tremendous opportunity to learn about a wide breadth of topics, some of which I knew nothing about, for example, financial toxicity. Others, for example, disparity in access, and digital interventions have helped me to gain a more holistic view of supportive care in cancer. I was also able to network and connect with several healthcare professionals from around the world and learn about their work.
"The MASCC conference was an incredible international platform to showcase research led by Velindre University NHS Trust. I am grateful for the opportunity to attend.”
Following a review and refresh the Velindre Healthcare Cancer Research Community is now meeting monthly and in a hybrid format to improve access. This enables research interested staff to learn more about research through engagement with a supportive group of clinicians and researchers. With permissions, presentations are recorded to facilitate uploading onto the Velindre Oncology Academy website in the longer term. PDFs of power point presentations are also uploaded with permissions.
A range of external and internal speakers have been invited to present on a range of topics and we have welcomed colleagues from across nursing and therapies to these sessions:
The 2025-2026 programme is in planning and will include at least one international guest speaker who will focus on cancer prehabilitation.
Success for Velindre Research Fellow, Fran Brown.
Congratulations to Fran Brown, Registered Nurse, SACT Clinical Trainer and Velindre Research Fellow who has successfully completed her study investigating the potential of simulation training to improve the knowledge and confidence of nurses responding to acute adverse reactions to SACT treatment. Fran also had an abstract accepted for a poster presentation at the annual United Kingdom Oncology Nursing Society Conference in Manchester in 2024.
Fran’s study aimed to compare simulation education and standard classroom-based education in new SACT nurses’ knowledge and confidence in managing SACT related reactions. To do this Fran assessed nurses’ confidence pre and post education using a 5-point Likert Scale. In addition, knowledge questionnaires were completed before and one week after the SACT education. Open text feedback was also gathered from participants after both education sessions to determine what was learnt and how the sessions could be enhanced. Data were collected between February and July 2024.
Fourteen new SACT nurses participated in the study – seven in each group. Quantitative data suggested that there was a similar increase in confidence for both groups. The simulation group had a slightly larger increase in knowledge. The data suggested that simulation education was not inferior to standard education and may be more effective. In addition, data indicated that all participants were content with their SACT training. Valuable open text, qualitative data was generated by both groups of participants.
Themes included the perception of enhanced confidence to identify and manage SACT reactions:
“After the session I am more confident in identifying when a patient may be experiencing a reaction and what to do when this is happening.” (Standard education group)
“The knowledge and the practical skills made me feel confident enough to handle hypersensitivity reactions.” (Simulation education group)
In addition, there was a desire for greater use of scenario-based learning and learning in practice:
“Would like to have more scenarios to get used to identifying reactions and how to grade them more confidently” (Standard education group)
“Being in the clinical area with more facilities would make this better.” (Simulation education group)
Fran reflected on her experience:
“The open text data was particularly interesting and suggested that scenario-based learning offered a better learning experience for participants. The data generated from this VIR project was useful to the Education Team and will inform planning of future SACT education and training. Going forward, the Education Team plan to use one of the SACT Day Case Units to deliver simulation-based education to make the scenarios more realistic for learners. The new Velindre Cancer Centre will include a simulation education area which will help improve the way education and training is delivered.
"Carrying out simulation scenarios as part of their SACT training will help nurses gain experience of managing SACT related infusion reactions in a safe environment. Nurses will learn how to recognise the signs and symptoms of an infusion reaction, how to assess the severity and grade of the reaction and how to prepare and administer the rescue medications. Practicing this away from the clinical area will enhance their knowledge and skills so that when they encounter this situation in practice, they will feel more confident and competent which will have a positive impact on the patient and improve their outcomes and experience.
"Undertaking the research project as part of the Velindre Fellowship Scheme and completing a master’s level module in research at Cardiff University has given me a better understanding of research, what research involves and the impact it can have. It also encouraged me to apply for the MSc in Advanced Healthcare Practice, and I am about to embark on my dissertation for the MSc award.”
Fran was supported by Dr Nichola Gale, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy at Cardiff University and a member of the Velindre-Healthcare Research Support Team and her Velindre Cancer Centre colleagues.
Fran went on to say:
“I had done nothing like this before. Nichola Gale was very supportive when I was carrying out the project and when I was preparing the poster. My Velindre Cancer Centre colleagues were also very supportive and encouraging when carrying out the practical part of the project.
“I would encourage anyone to consider the Velindre Research Fellowship. It helps you enhance your critical thinking skills and gives you a better understanding of how research is carried out. It can be slightly overwhelming as the language of research can be a little daunting, but it is very satisfying when you do start to understand the terms as reading research articles makes more sense to you.”
Velindre Introduction to Research Fellowships are supported by Velindre Charity.