Sarah Traill

Sarah has a range of leadership and management responsibilities within the School of Nursing including business development, learning and teaching, quality assurance, staff development and student experience. She is also the Faculty lead contact for the Nursing Midwifery Council. In addition Sarah teaches on undergraduate and post graduate courses in mental health, nursing, psychological therapies. She maintains clinical practice as a cognitive behavioural therapist (CBT) in primary care and has published on nursing, research and CBT. Her Doctoral research is in the area of student perception and experience.

Sarah has been at UCLan for the last 17 years and prior to becoming Deputy Head she was the academic team leader for the mental health team in the School of Nursing. Sarah has had previous roles as course leader for BSc pre registration nursing (Mental Health), she has led and contributed to numerous modules and courses covering mental health nursing, cognitive therapy and improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT). She has been involved with university and faculty wide projects covering student wellbeing, student experience and quality assurance. Prior to coming to UCLan has had a number of roles in both the NHS and independent sector, as a nurse, manager, practice development facilitator and cognitive behaviour therapist (CBT). In recent years Sarah has acted as a quality assurance registrant reviewer for the NMC, reviewing pre registration nursing programmes across the United Kingdom. She has developed and delivered bespoke education for the NHS, county council and independent sector and provides supervision for clinical staff in the NHS. Sarah trained as a cognitive behavioural therapist, gaining her MSc in 1998, and has continued in practice since then. She currently practices in primary care. Maintaining and enhancing her skills is important in terms of clinical effectiveness, but it also provides an advantage to students in that she is not remote from the realities of day to day clinical practice.

Whilst working in practice development, Sarah found that she had a genuine passion for teaching and learning, often using action research principles to improve educational endeavours. She completed a Post Graduate Diploma in teaching and learning in 2004 and then moved into Higher Education to take on a senior lecturer post here at UCLan. Sarah is committed to approaches to work and education that promote psychological safety, emotional intelligence and facilitate the conditions for students and staff to fulfil their potential. Her current research explores mental health students perception of the academic feedback they receive and associated structural and agency factors. She has presented research at national conferences and contributed to faculty teaching and learning on the topic.