Hospital bed, Tehran, Iran. Photo: CC BY 4.0 International Fars News Agency
The London site opened in early April. Barts Health NHS Trust Knowledge and Library Services were able to offer knowl- edge services and resources. The team was quickly able to promote resources that had already been gathered by HEE on the Covid-19 blog pages. As other Nightingale hospitals were planned the HEE team set up a com- munity of practice for the library and knowledge services staff involved, so that they could collaborate, learn, and support each other. As part of this, clini- cal decision-making tools like BMJ Best Practice27
have been embedded into the patient record.
Representatives from the library and knowledge services supporting the seven Nightingale hospitals in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Harrogate, London, Manchester and Washington participate in this community of practice which is facilitated by the HEE team. To begin with they met weekly and the learning from the London team was shared with the group.
Meeting training needs NHS librarians have an impressive record of networking as a means of mutual support as well as knowledge exchange. The HEE regional teams have ensured regular contact with trust library service managers throughout. We moved fast to commission programmes to support virtual working – facilitating virtual meet- ings, developing skills to deliver training online. These were fully booked within 30 minutes of being advertised and are being repeated to enable maximum participa- tion across the country. Equally we have been concerned to support individuals
June-July 2020
through a challenging time and have offered sessions on wellbeing and resilience.
Learning to date
We will continue to reflect on an ongoing basis, but there are some initial themes. Covid-19 has raised the profile of NHS library and knowledge services in many trusts. It has the potential to influence the design and delivery of services going forward. The delivery of health library and knowledge services through the pandemic reinforces guiding principles and values articulated in the Knowledge for Healthcare strategy28
, particularly regarding:
l Collaboration: we observe greater col- laborative working between NHS library services
l Digita-by-default: accelerating approaches that optimise digital and virtual delivery
l Collective purchasing: centralised pro- curement to reduce inequities in access to evidence sources
l It also speaks to the importance of mobi- lising knowledge to support evidence usage from Board to bedside.
Teams are supporting each other not simply by knowledge sharing and through networks but by sharing and repurposing information outputs. Looking ahead to the ‘new normal’ in which health and care staff will be working we see a greater role for health library and knowledge service teams in supporting digital skills, digital and health literacy and patient information. At the same time, the pandemic experi- ence has surfaced that health librarians will want to consider whether there are further areas where it is most productive to create
a single resource, or lead delivery of a single service once, nationally.
All these themes will be reflected in the refresh of HEE’s strategic development framework, Knowledge for Healthcare. As a member of the HEE Library and Knowledge Service team this time has been equally challenging and rewarding. There have been the personal challenges faced by all of us of seeing society, work and family life change overnight. There has been the challenge and delight of virtual working, of virtual friends and virtual family. Gardens and public green spaces have become more important. It has been rewarding to engage my critical thinking and assessment skills of information while contributing to the direct service provision provided to the public through the Coronavirus resources on
library.nhs.uk. Working as part of a diverse and skilled national team during this time has allowed me to develop my skills further in different areas including curating infor- mation, responding to training needs and web development all at speed.
The dedication of NHS librarians through these difficult times is striking. For our part, the HEE Library and Knowledge Services team is focused on understanding how we can assist and support our colleagues to deliver knowledge services to the NHS during the pandemic. We are committed to supporting library and knowledge services staff in the NHS, and to deliver what is of most help to them, as they continue their work to bring evidence to the ward and the Board, to underpin patient care. Details of access to library and knowledge services for Health Education England staff can be found here:
http://hee.libguides.com/lks/home. IP
References
www.cilip.org.uk/References_IP_June_July_2020_pp22_25
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