Digital dividend
Ruth points out: “The headline that has grabbed attention is that the scheme includes the NHS App, but it is also health information more widely.” She said the App is seen as the “digital front door to the National Health Service” and for that reason it is adaptable, so the “functionality works on a smart- phone, but also through tablets and log-in through the NHS website.” Once a user has been set up and is confident to use it, the NHS App provides a wide range of health infor- mation and also gives users access to health services like repeat prescriptions, booking appointments and finding health services.
It also means more people have
i mmediate access to new and innova- tive features when they are rolled out onto the NHS App – whether that’s being able to view and manage hos- pital appointments on the App, or GP practices being able to send NHS App notifications to patients with appoint- ment reminders and other messages relating to their care.
What’s in the Toolkit?
Ruth said the toolkit has two strands: “Firstly, there are the resources for the NHS App and the NHS website, including new video training resources developed specifically for library staff to use. Along- side the training on demand, a series of online drop-in sessions have been set up for any questions about the NHS App. “Then, the second element is a pair of resources for signposting more widely to health information. These are Your Health Collection (
https://library.nhs.uk/yhc/) – developed by the national NHS Knowl- edge and Library Services team and The Reading Agency) and the directory of information producers (
https://piftick.org. uk/) that meet the Patient Information Forum’s PiF TICK standards.”
How to spread the word? Alongside the resources above, the toolkit also contains promotional tools. However, Ruth says: “This is intended to be a slow development over time, building local partnerships with the NHS and with voluntary sector organ- isations.” But she says that when they are needed, there are “communications tools in the toolkit and opportunities to set up promotion in partnership with regional NHS communications teams.”
Keeping track
With so many library services keen to take part, Ruth highlights the need for a systematic approach. “We are keen to have resources used in order to make a difference, but need to know which services are using them. We are keen to increase the confidence of public
October-November 2024 Ruth Carlyle.
library staff in signposting to high-quality health information, so we need library staff to complete a survey at the start of their activities (from the end of October onwards) and at the end of the first phase (in Feb- ruary 2025). We also provide options for measures, to make it as easy as possible for library services to count usage.” The aim is to learn from the experience. “We are definitely keen to learn from the process,” Ruth says, “We will be holding knowledge exchange sessions to help to refine the learning for all those involved, including Libraries Connected and NHS England. Ideally, spreading into other sec- tors, such as school libraries or academic libraries, would be a fabulous develop- ment for us.”
Lessons from pilots
The simple goal of this large-scale project is another unexpected result of many recent pilots. Ruth said: “The ask of the health literacy pilots was more complex, as we provided training on health literacy techniques and looked at a range of dif- ferent interventions to increase the health literacy awareness.”
The pilots also aimed to increase the confidence of staff and of members of the public who completed the interventions. She said: “We learned that a simpler intervention, such as health information signposting, would be easier for public libraries to undertake and likely to have more impact over time.”
Challenges A detailed look at risks that the pilot INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 31
sites faced will be published on the CILIP website in due course and details of the learning from each pilot site (www.
cilip.org.uk/health-and-digital-case-studies) are already available. For a general view of the challenges this project might face, Ruth pointed to the findings for the pilots, saying: “As part of the health literacy pilots, we worked with NHS librarians on our Developing the KLS Researcher programme to evaluate the pilot sites. The barriers they found were: time, capacity, technology, collaboration and marketing.”
Role of the profession
As a cross-sector project, a number of si- los and barriers had to be breached. Ruth said: “Having CILIP as a broker is a huge benefit when working with libraries in different sectors. With the health literacy pilot sites, we ran the selection of the pilot sites and the development of the pro- gramme through CILIP to support joint sector working between NHS libraries and public libraries.
“Professional bodies are respected in healthcare, both for their professional leadership and their ethical values. Being known to have the equivalent professional body behind us helps to support the work of librarians as a profession.” If you would like more information about the activity, there is a building set of responses to frequently asked questions on
https://library.nhs.uk/health-information/pub- lic-libraries/ or you can email the Knowledge for Healthcare account for the national NHS Knowledge and Library Services team on
england.kfh@
nhs.net. IP
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
