Therefore, understanding the ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ of today’s health librarians and knowledge specialists and facilitating colleagues to further their professional development is key.


The 2017 staff survey of NHS funded library and knowledge services in England15 was undertaken as a group project by participants in an HEE funded leadership development programme. It was a great success and the same team volunteered to lead and conduct the survey in 2019.16 Crucially these surveys have created a rich data-set that allows HEE to support the development of our specialist workforce at local, regional and national levels. The tool has become a central component of our work to design and deliver an HEE led national and regional training offer – 758 people responded the first time, 15,656 the second.8 Comparing the two returns, in 20198 Emerging technologies came top of the list compared with Demonstrating impact and value in 2017.15


Reflecting the type and level


of expertise required as essential skills in our sector, as well as perennial issues facing health librarians, eight development needs appeared in each Top Ten listing. These may be grouped as:


l Emerging technologies


l Literature searching/Information retrieval; Healthcare database searching


l Critical appraisal; Synthesising and summarising evidence


l Demonstrating value and impact; Marketing and promoting services; Social media and collaborative tools.


The analysis provides a level of granularity that allows detailed consideration of needs and how best to meet these. For instance, the more senior respondents identified a need for skills such as Strategic Planning, Costing and Key Performance Indicators while paraprofessionals said that they wanted to improve Search and Retrieval Skills and Marketing and Promotion Skills.8 Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2019, Leadership dropped from the Top Ten, while Advocacy and Stakeholder Engagement featured as a more promi- nent ‘want’. We believe this reflects HEE’s investment in two separate leadership development programmes. Two topics coming to the fore in 2019 were Quality Improvement and Teaching and Training skills,8


changes reflecting shifts in focus in the light of the publication of The Topol Review17


and the development of the


HEE Quality and Improvement Outcomes Framework.18


A national CPD programme Historically, continuing professional devel- opment (CPD) opportunities in England were something of a postcode lottery, dependent on regional investment and provision. Since the launch of Knowledge for Healthcare, library staff from across the


40 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL June-July 2020


regions with an interest in CPD have worked together to better co-ordinate development opportunities.


An early success was the reach of our initi-


atives to enhance the skills and confidence of qualified librarians in synthesising and summarising evidence so that they can better mobilise research. We commissioned a two-day training programme at which facilitated group practice sessions were an integral element. More than 300 people participated.19


The 2017 Needs Analysis gave this workstream an added impetus. A concerted effort has been made to meet the declared ‘wants’ via an active programme delivered nationally and regionally. In 2019-20 alone, there were 1,203 participant attendances at development events – excluding HEE’s leadership development programmes and network meetings. As well as looking through the lens of themes, the CPD group is responsible for taking an overview of the training on offer to specific staff groups. For instance, in 2019/20 there were 135 attendances by paraprofessional staff at six tailored events. 20


One size does not fit all


Considering initiatives around Demon- strating Value and Impact, which came top of the list in 2017, gives a flavour of the multi-faceted approach adopted. HEE has offered face-to-face training on aligning service strategy to that of the employer and on Storytelling for Impact. Resources have been developed and added to the Knowledge for Healthcare blog, including the Value and Impact Toolkit21 and we invite case studies to a national database.22


Organisational knowledge management (KM) and promoting evidence into practice are prominent in the strategy.3


There have


been 875 participant attendances in KM training events since 2017. Both qualified and paraprofessional library staff have attended a mix of formal commissioned courses; face-to-face and virtual introduc- tory workshops produced by the in-house


team; or events to practise knowledge management techniques.23 A ‘task and finish group’ of volunteers shared their expertise, developing a Knowledge Management Toolkit as a resource.24


Knowledge Mobilisation Framework and continue to publish new e-learning modules and associated postcards.25 Figure three).


Colleagues updated the HEE (See


Producing and sharing knowledge assets is a valuable approach to ex- tend reach and reinforce learning. For instance, 160 staff joined a series of webinars introducing key KM concepts; recordings of these have been viewed 957 times.26


We encourage individuals to get involved in online discussions and one of our Leadership Development programme groups launched a KM Community of Practice.27


HEE’s strategy flags the need for part- nership working to achieve a joined-up approach to address the public and patient information agenda.3


Working


with the Community Health and Learn- ing Foundation, our Health Literacy and Patient Information workstream developed a bespoke training package for healthcare library and knowledge ser- vices staff.28


This raises awareness of the


impacts of health literacy and explores using tools and techniques to ensure that health information is accessible to all. A total of 238 people participated in training in 2018/19, some from partner organisations including charities and public libraries. Many more took part in conference sessions, shorter awareness sessions and lightning talks. Further resources for the healthcare workforce were launched in April 2020, implementing an explicit model for the scale and spread of health literacy aware- ness training (See figure 4). This includes a one-hour introduction accredited by the Royal Society for Public Health,28 an e-learning package co-developed with NHS Education for Scotland29 a short introduction to health literacy


and Figure 3. The Knowledge Mobilisation Framework.


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