IN DEPTH
Knowledge for Healthcare: responding to Covid-19
Health librarians have been at the forefront of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. Catherine McLaren, on behalf of the Health Eductaion England (HEE) Library and Knowledge Services Team, looks at what that has meant over the last three months – and what it means for the sector as it moves forward.
ALTHOUGH we are all still amid change, the national Library and Knowledge Services team within Health Education England (HEE) has recently taken stock of our activities through the pandemic to date. We are keen to understand the learning that we can take from the experience and are sharing our reflections at this point in the hope that this may be helpful to others.
Implementing Knowledge for Healthcare1 ,
the team leads a strategic approach to the development of NHS library and knowledge services. Now, as in normal times, we provide professional advice to the system and to health librarians. The team procures and ensures that the NHS has 24/7 access to evidence and knowledge resources, supports the develop- ment and assures the quality of NHS library and knowledge services in England. During the Covid-19 pandemic we have also undertaken some direct service provision where we have identified a single, central approach as the most effective response to the need. On 30 January 2020 the first laboratory confirmed case by specimen data of Cov- id-19 in England. The next day another one followed, and throughout February cases slowly picked up2
. At the same time people
were placed in quarantine as they came back from Wuhan China.
22 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Catherine McLaren (@cmmclaren) is Library and Knowledge Service Development Manager – Health Education England, East of England and Midlands.
www.hee.nhs.uk.
Information professionals were quickly on the case. On 18 February #ukmedlibs3
held
a twitter chat on Questions for coronavirus, and other public health emergencies: the librarian’s role4
. The chat was hosted by
Caroline De Brún of Public Health England (PHE) and highlighted the work of libraries during health emergencies. By the end of the chat5
that evening, a lot of material had been gathered and ideas on the best way forward had been shared. The HEE Library and Knowledge Services team immediately decided to create an online resource to bring information and ideas together in response to the developing crisis. We chose to host
June-July 2020
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