What does this mean for libraries? 

Libraries are ideally placed to support the education and continuing professional development of the existing workforce, and particularly of new recruits in new roles. The report makes it clear that ‘further work is needed to more systematically train, recruit and retain staff’ is required, along with ‘more opportunities for current staff and those returning to practice to work flexibly and remotely, and to develop new skills to progress in their careers’ (p.14).

Library and knowledge specialists can help with ‘empowering staff to innovate and improve services for patients’ (p.15) by providing the evidence needed to support innovations through mediated evidence searches, training on how to search the evidence base, or supplying copies of necessary documents. Helping staff feel empowered to make changes will assist with staff retention.

Throughout the NHS, library and knowledge specialists can help mobilise the knowledge gained from new ways of working, and can do this by supporting staff to manage knowledge and ‘know-how’ through a range of techniques such as peer-assists and knowledge cafés. Library and knowledge specialists have also been involved in helping staff publish the results of research and innovation, both in peer-reviewed publications, and through more informal routes, and many library and knowledge services are working on institutional repositories to make local staff research and other publications more widely disseminated and discoverable.

Library and knowledge specialists support health literacy, and some already work with patient information groups to improve the quality of information provided to patients, ensuring it is both evidence-based and understandable. This is going to become even more important in the future to support the co-development of personalised care plans with patients (p.41).

Finally, library and knowledge specialists can help support the wellbeing of staff and students, and examples include collections of books for leisure reading, Books on Prescription, providing wellbeing areas, organising wellbeing events, or simply just being a place where staff can escape the pressures of a clinical environment and get some work or study done.

Source: NHS England and NHS Improvement

Link to main document

Date of publication: February 2022

Summary of driver:

Elective care covers a broad range of non-urgent services, usually delivered in a hospital setting, from diagnostic tests and scans, to outpatient care, surgery and cancer treatment. The report does not cover primary care, community care, urgent and emergency care and mental health services.

The aim is to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024/25 than before the pandemic, with waits of more than a year eliminated by March 2025.

There are four main areas of focus:

Increasing health service capacity

• Expansion and separation of elective and diagnostic service capacity, including the physical separation of elective from urgent and emergency services
• Growing and supporting the workforce
• Using digital technology and advanced data systems to free up capacity
• Working with UKHSA to safely adapt the UK’s infection prevention and control (IPC) measures
• Making effective use of independent sector capacity

Prioritising diagnosis and treatment

• A return towards delivery of the six-week diagnostic standard and reducing the maximum length of time that patients wait for elective care and treatment.
• Clinical prioritisation: ensure the order in which patients are seen reflects clinical judgement on need.
• Managing long waits: targeting support to reduce the number of people waiting a long time.
• Increasing the number of cancer referrals, to ensure we also prioritise those patients who have not yet presented to services.

Transforming the way we provide elective care

• Expanding community diagnostic centres (more than 100 are planned) with a focus on ease of access and convenience for patients.
• Increasing surgical capacity through surgical hubs – separating out many of the low complexity surgical pathways through additional surgical hubs, improving outcomes for patients and reducing pressure on hospitals.
• Improving patient pathways to reduce avoidable delays by ensuring we are making the best use of the latest technology, clinical time and expertise.
• Improving access to specialist advice – providing greater flexibility in how advice from clinicians is accessed by patients, enabling more timely, convenient and appropriate care and avoiding the need for unnecessary appointments.
• Making outpatient care more personalised – giving patients more choice around outpatient care, with options to book their follow-ups and attend video or phone consultations if preferred, simultaneously freeing up capacity for the most clinically urgent. This will include digital innovation through the NHS App.

Providing better information and support to patients

• Targeted support information for patients, including through My Planned Care – initially delivering a new platform to increase transparency on wait times and provide a hub of support information for patients covering the entire pathway, before further development to integrate this with the NHS App.
• Supporting patients to prepare for surgery – by co-developing personalised plans that provide them with the necessary information and guidance to prepare for the best possible outcomes.
• Emphasising the expertise of NHS staff in providing high quality personalised and tailored support to patients, supported by the latest innovations in technology and improved data sharing

Tagged: Cancer, Elective care, Secondary care, Surgery