On the evening of Tuesday 26th September 2023 Professor Karen McCutcheon, Deputy Head of School, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen's University Belfast, gave a Professorial Lecture in the Council Chamber, Lanyon Building, QUB. The title of the lecture was 'NICE Nursing.'

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is recognised as the leading provider for the DoH in terms of national guidance and advice to improve health and social care in the UK. NICE was established in England and Wales in 1999 and formed links with Northern Ireland in 2006. The balance of maintaining quality of care and patient safety within this current time of tight budgetary constraint needs to remain the primary focus of all healthcare systems. It is imperative that healthcare practitioners are constructively involved in all healthcare policy decisions to ensure that the focus is not just on money, but on safe and effective patient care. NICE guidelines can help support clinician decision making and evidence based practice.

As a healthcare practitioner you might have specialist experience, but you also need to deliver evidence based practice to achieve the best possible patient outcomes. Evidence based teaching and learning is one of the key components in the development of highly skilled, knowledgeable and compassionate professionals. As a professor of nursing Karen has used her influence to ensure that the patient has remained front and centre not only in clinical guideline development but also nurse education.

In attendance were members of Karen's family and friends who joined colleagues from education, health and social care and professional organisations across Northern Ireland. The Professorial Lecture focused on Karen's experience of clinical evidence and decision making, evidence based teaching and learning and the patient experience. It also showcased some of her work in terms of clinical guideline development as a NICE committee member for over 17 years.

Below are a selection of Professor McCutcheon's Publications:

Hung Jung, J., McCutcheon K., Borofsky M., Young V., Golazin J., Kim M., Dahm P. Narayan M. (2022) Prostatic arterial embolisation for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Cochrane database of systematic reviews. 3, CD012867, 29.03.22.

Brown Wilson, C., Slade, C., McCutcheon, K. (2022) Providing a roadmap for co-production in curriculum development for Nursing and Midwifery education. Nurse Education Today, 113(6).

Hung Jung, J., Young Shin T., McCutcheon K., Borofsky M., Narayan M., Young V., Golazin J., Ha Kim M., Reddy B. and Dahm P. (2019) Prostatic urethral lift for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online), Vol. 2019, No. 5, CD012832, 26.05.2019.

McCutcheon K., O’Halloran P. and Lohan M. (2018) Online learning versus blended learning of clinical supervisee skills with pre-registration nursing students: A randomised controlled trial. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 82(6), 30-39.

McCutcheon K., Lohan M., Traynor M. and Martin D. (2015) A systematic review evaluating the impact of online or blended learning versus face to face learning of clinical skills in undergraduate nurse education. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 71(2), 255-270.

McCutcheon K., Gormley K. (2014) Service-user involvement in nurse education: partnership or tokenism? British Journal of Nursing, 23(22), 16-19.