Public attitudes to the NHS. An analysis of responses to questions in the British Social Attitudes Survey

March 18, 2015 Comments Off on Public attitudes to the NHS. An analysis of responses to questions in the British Social Attitudes Survey

Title of driver: Public attitudes to the NHS. An analysis of responses to questions in the British Social Attitudes Survey

Source:  Link to main document: Follow this link to view the pdf http://www.health.org.uk/publications/public-attitudes-to-the-nhs/

Publication format:  PDF

Date of publication: February 2015

Summary of driver:

This report analyses the results of a series of questions about the NHS that were included in the 2014 British Social Attitudes Survey, undertaken by NatCen Social Research.

The 2014 survey (on which this report is based) received a 47% response rate (2,878 responses returned). The BSA survey asks about the public’s attitudes to a range of social issues but the 2014 report focused on questions relating to NHS funding and care.

Key features of driver:

  • Annual survey of representative sample of adults aged 18 and over from across Great Britain who live in private households.
  • Strong support for NHS across all sections of British society. Majority of those funded agree that government should support a national health system that is tax funded.
  • Just under half of respondents believe that NHS has neither improved nor deteriorated over the last five years.
  • Younger generation are less committed to the idea of NHS as a provider of care than the older generation.
  • Just over half of respondents think the NHS wastes money and a majority would not support further cuts to other public services in order to provide additional funding for the NHS.
  • Important to note the 2014/15 has been one of the most challenging winters in the recent history of the NHS which may have influenced public perception of the NHS.
  • Majority of respondents are not bothered about who delivers their care as long as they get the care required.
  • NHS needs to deliver improved productivity and demonstrate that waste is being reduced.
  • NHS is consistently one of the most important issues to voters and research suggests that the NHS funding will have to increase faster than inflation in order to maintain the quality and range of NHS services.

Primary audience: Anyone with an interest in the public attitudes of the NHS/provision of health care services.

Impact on library policy/practice: No immediate direct impact on libraries identified. Possible rise in interest in information relating to socio-economic factors of healthcare provision.

Date last updated: February 2015

Due for review:  February 2016

Group member responsible: LK

Interpreting key drivers for your organisation

March 17, 2015 Comments Off on Interpreting key drivers for your organisation

Part of my role on the MAP Toolkit Steering Group is to identify new drivers that emerge from the national agenda.  A driver might be a report from a national body or association, a white paper, a new resource, or anything else that may affect the way that health care services are structured and delivered.   Once a new driver is identified, I summarise the key points and try to identify what implications there are for library and knowledge services as a result.  All drivers are published on the MAP Toolkit.  The purpose of this process is to help librarians to understand how they are aligned with national healthcare objectives and to allow them to demonstrate this alignment to their home organisation.

Occasionally, a driver emerges that is wholly relevant to libraries.  In January 2015, Knowledge for healthcare: a development framework for NHS library and knowledge services in England 2015-2020 was published by Health Education England.  Knowledge for healthcare lays out a framework upon which Health Education England (HEE) will build an action plan for library and knowledge services in NHS England.  It highlights the following themes as the future of library and knowledge services: personalised services, embedding library roles within teams, demonstrating impact to stakeholders, making access easy and convenient with mobile and digital access as standard, a greater focus on packaging and synthesising evidence for consumption, value for money, and library staff seeking opportunities in the Knowledge Management (KM) agenda as ‘knowledge brokers’.  I duly set about summarising the main points and published my summary on the MAP Toolkit.

As part of my day job as the Library & Knowledge Service Lead at Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, I printed a copy of the new framework for my line manager .  At our subsequent one-to-one she wanted to know more about it, specifically what the implications were for the wider organisation.  I realised with horror that while I had a good understanding of the implications of the new framework for libraries, I had failed to translate any potential repercussions for my Trust.  I had also neglected to interpret any library jargon that could be a potential barrier to managers reading the report.   Back at my desk, I wrote a few key points that I felt would help to interpret the framework and make it more meaningful to senior managers in my organisation.  I have shared these below in case they are helpful to anyone else faced with the same question!

Knowledge for healthcare may have the following local implications:

  • LKS staff will begin to undertake less traditional library activities, e.g. supporting the knowledge management agenda, acting as ‘roving’ librarians working outside the library, re-packaging and synthesising information as a ‘product’. Training and support may be required to enable the team to develop accordingly.
  • There will be an increase in the use of technology to deliver library services. This may include utilising social media to market and promote library services, and the use of e-technologies and media to enable remote access to services.
  • A review will be undertaken by Health Education England which may result in recommendations for delivering back office functions.
  • We expect to see more collaborative working with partner organisations, including more resource purchasing via consortia deals which should be more cost-effective.
  • WUTH staff and students will require support as access to national e-resources changes; the library service will be pivotal in providing support during this transition.
  • The national Library Quality Assurance Framework (LQAF), against which the library service is assessed, will be reviewed and we should expect changes. This may affect some of our internal processes as we strive to meet the LQAF criteria.

The exercise was a useful lesson that while the MAP Toolkit helps me to understand healthcare drivers in the context of libraries, sometimes I might be required to interpret library drivers on behalf of non-librarians.  It also reminded me of the importance of using the same language and terminology as those outside libraries in order to communicate effectively.

The MAP Toolkit Steering group horizon scan for new drivers and summarise them using the process I’ve described above.  If you’re interested in joining us or finding out more, please contact MAP Toolkit Lead Tracey Pratchett at tracey.pratchett@lthtr.nhs.uk.

Victoria Treadway
Library & Knowledge Service Lead
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
victoria.treadway@nhs.net
@librarianpocket

Equipment on trial

March 16, 2015 Comments Off on Equipment on trial
Judges gavel

Image: (CC): http://pixabay.com/en/gavel-hammer-judge-justice-court-568417/

Matt Johnston a Knowledge Service Administrator from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust explains how visiting other teams and sharing objectives helps with improved referrals:

A therapy team who use the knowledge service to request articles and searches embarked on a project to trial some equipment. The team had limited experience of conducting equipment trials or how to evaluate in a structured way. In fact they were at a loss on how to begin the project. They contacted the Knowledge Service to see if they could provide any advice. I knew that the best team to speak to would be the Innovation & Research (I & R) Team. The Knowledge Service team had spent a day with the I & R team a few months ago to share our teams objectives, so I was confident that they could assist.

The Therapy Team Leader met with I & R; this resulted in the therapy team completing templates for their project and receiving advice about the methods they can use to evaluate and report results. The team are now embarking on a new project to reduce the incidence of repeat fallers and now know where to get the support they need.

A Manifesto for Better Mental Health

March 11, 2015 Comments Off on A Manifesto for Better Mental Health

Title of driver: A Manifesto for Better Mental Health

Source:  The Mental Health Policy Group.       (Rethink Mental Illness, Centre for Mental Health, Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Network, Mind and the Royal College of Psychiatrists)

Link to main document:  Follow this link to view the pdf https://www.mind.org.uk/media/1113989/a-manifesto-for-better-mental-health.pdf

(MIND also has pages with links to the full text, a summary and some background information).

Publication format: PDF

Date of publication: August 2014

Summary of driver:

The manifesto is a call to any future government to prioritise mental health; and to commit to and work towards improvements to the provision of mental health services.

The manifesto focuses on five main areas with several suggested improvements and commitments for each.

Key features of driver:

The five areas the manifesto focuses on are:

  • Funding for mental health.
  • Mental health services for children.
  • Improving the physical health care of people with mental health conditions.
  • Improving the lives of those with mental health conditions.
  • Improving access to mental healthcare services.

Within these area there calls for action around:

  • Increasing funding so improvements can be implemented; and basing funding decisions on their impact on the delivery of mental and physical health services.
  • Women’s access to mental health services during and post pregnancy.
  • Mental health being part of the school curriculum.
  • Training school nurses and teachers about mental health.
  • Continued funding for evidence-based parenting programmes.
  • Reducing avoidable deaths amongst those with mental health conditions
  • Ensuing doctors monitor the physical health of people with mental health conditions.
  • Applying the reduction of smoking targets equally to people with mental health problems – reducing the risks to their physical health.
  • The Time to Change programme
  • Combining employment support and health support for unemployed people with mental health conditions.
  • Implementing maximum waiting times for mental health services.
  • Crisis care and the Crisis Care Condordat.
  • A national network of liaison and diversion mental health services, to work with the police and the courts.

Primary audience: Politicians, in the run up to the 2015 general election.

Impact on library policy/practice: No immediate direct impact on libraries identified.

If these ideas are taken up by a future government, there may in an increased interest in evidence-based information around the topics and service developments suggested.

This could influence the topics which libraries receive literature search and current awareness service requests for. This may also require collection development around these topics and to support strategy development.

Date last updated: October 2017

Due for review: October 2018

Group member responsible: FG

Local action on health inequalities: evidence papers

March 9, 2015 Comments Off on Local action on health inequalities: evidence papers

Title of driver: Local action on health inequalities: evidence papers

Source: Commissioned by Public Health England and prepared by UCL Institute of Health Equity (IHE)

Link to main document 

Publication format: Webpage with links to eight individual evidence reviews and 14 briefing papers

Date of publication: September 2014

Summary of driver: The evidence reviews provide evidence for interventions on social issues that lead to poor health, as well as practical advice in dealing with these issues, and local examples.

Action to reduce health inequalities is central to the work of Public Health England, and health inequalities are a longstanding challenge. Local authority public health teams wanted evidence to support implementation of practical action on health inequalities

The topics covered relate to some of the policy objectives in the Marmot Review and are intended to provide a useful local focus for action.

Key features of driver: The evidence reviews provide useful background information on public health issues, including the impact on measures such as life expectancy, morbidity, or impact on hospital admissions. They also provide case studies of actual interventions, areas where further research is required, and an extensive reference list.

Primary audience: Local authority staff, particularly public health teams and health and wellbeing boards

Impact on library policy/practice: No direct impacts identified

Date last updated: March 2015

Due for review: March 2016

Group member responsible: JC

End of Year Learning Guidance

March 9, 2015 Comments Off on End of Year Learning Guidance

Title of driver: End of Year Learning Guidance

Source: NHS Improving Quality

Link to main document http://www.nhsiq.nhs.uk/capacity-capability/knowledge-and-intelligence/iq-handbooks/learning-handbook/end-of-year-learning-guidance.aspx

Publication format: Interactive Prezi slideshow with hyperlinks to supporting documentation. Also available as a PDF.

Date of publication: 2014

Supporting documentation: NHS Improving Quality, (2014), Learning Handbook http://www.nhsiq.nhs.uk/capacity-capability/knowledge-and-intelligence/iq-handbooks/learning-handbook.aspx

Summary of driver:

Outlines the need for teams to conduct end of year, or end of project, lessons learned reviews.

Provides information on the recommended style of learning activity – retrospect review.

The guidance highlights the benefits of conducting lessons learned reviews and capturing the knowledge acquired during the team’s work.

Key features of driver:

  • This guidance focuses on documenting tacit knowledge, through learning activities and the production of a lessons learned report.
  • Capturing and sharing this knowledge is seen as key to ensuring that NHS organisations are resilient, and positive outcomes can be repeated.
  • The benefits of end of year, or end of project, learning activities include: sharing knowledge throughout the organisation; and identifying positive and negative actions so that they can be repeated or avoided in the future for similar projects.
  • Recommends using the retrospective review method.
  • The guidance acknowledges there are other possible learning activity methods. The guidance includes hyperlinks to the appropriate pages of the NHS Improving Quality’s Learning Handbook for further details of the methods.
  • Stresses that learning activities should focus on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ projects progressed in the way they did; and why they were successful or not successful compared to the team’s expectations prior to the work.
  • Learning activities should include all members of the team involved in a project – NHS staff and any external members, to ensure that everyone’s learning points and knowledge are included.
  • The lessons learned reports should be produced in an appropriate format, and stored and distributed in a way that makes them accessible to all staff within the organisation.
  • Includes links to a suggested lessons learned report template in the Learning Handbook.
  • Document also includes a link to a YouTube video explaining the concept of tacit knowledge.

Primary audience: Anyone working in the NHS

Impact on library policy/practice:

  • Although the guidance focuses on end of the financial year learning activities, the method could be used at the end of any project.
  • Library or information service staff could use learning activities to review their own work and projects.
  • Library staff may be able to facilitate lessons learned activities for other teams, or provide training on the use of various lessons learned activity methods.
  • As a contribution towards knowledge management, libraries may take on the task of storing and making available the lessons learned reports from departments throughout the organisation – using the library’s cataloguing system, other document storage system or Trust intranet.

Date last updated: March 2015

Due for review: March 2016

Group member responsible: FG

 

Fancy a brew? Randomised Coffee Trials

March 2, 2015 Comments Off on Fancy a brew? Randomised Coffee Trials

Find out how Liz Hedgecock at Health Education North West (HENW) helped improve

Spilled coffee beans

Image: (CC): http://pixabay.com/en/coffee-cup-coffee-beans-coffee-cup-171653/

organisational networking and understanding by simply going for a cup of coffee.  Liz explains the origins of the ‘Randomised Coffee Trial’ and her experiences of implementing a trial over on the Health Education NW blog.

Participants found it useful to support links between departments, build internal relationships, improve communication and staff engagement within the organisation.

The blog post also provides some useful reflections for the future rounds and some useful follow up reading.

Expert Patients

February 27, 2015 Comments Off on Expert Patients

Title of driver: Expert patients

Source: Reform

Link to main document: http://www.reform.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Expert-patients.pdf

Publication format: PDF

Date of publication: February 2015

Summary of driver: This report recommends stronger patient engagement in the NHS as it is key for the health service to achieve savings of £22 billion by 2020-21.

Patient engagement can improve outcomes and use of resources through patients being better able to manage their conditions, and so reducing medical interventions and invasive procedures, as well as improved public health.

Key features of driver:

  • Patient engagement could achieve £2 billion savings by 2020-21 (10% of NHS England target savings).
  • These savings would come from better self-care, improved public health, and greater patient contribution to their care.
  • For the NHS to become fit for “full engagement” private providers and outside expertise will be needed.
  • Outside the NHS, apps and social networking sites are already used by the public to take control over their health and conditions, helping the expert patient to emerge more quickly outside the NHS than within it. The NHS has made limited progress in the use of social media and technologies to improve the patient experience.
  • NHS providers and commissioners should appoint a “Director of Patient Experience” at board level.
  • The NHS should measure levels of patient engagement, activation and involvement and embrace patient engagement regardless of where it originates (whether outside the NHS or within).

Primary audience: Policy-makers, managers and leaders, commissioners, and NHS providers.

Impact on library policy/practice:

Libraries are in an ideal position to provide educational materials to enable patients to learn about their health and their conditions. Public libraries hold Books on Prescription and other resources while health libraries can support staff to educate patients.

Health libraries are also increasingly asked to provide resources or information for patients.

Libraries can adapt to the use of new technologies for customer service and can share expertise with the wider NHS.

Date last updated: February 2015

Due for review: February 2016

Group member responsible: (HS)

Knowledge for healthcare: a development framework for NHS library and knowledge services in England 2015-2020

February 20, 2015 Comments Off on Knowledge for healthcare: a development framework for NHS library and knowledge services in England 2015-2020

Source: Health Education England

Link to main document 
A shorter briefing document is also available.

Publication format: PDF

Date of publication: January 2015

Summary of driver:
Knowledge for healthcare lays out a framework upon which Health Education England (HEE) will build an action plan for library and knowledge services (LKS) in NHS England.

It promotes the following themes as the future of LKS: Personalised library and knowledge services, embedding library roles within teams, demonstrating impact to stakeholders, making access to LKS easy and convenient with mobile and digital access as standard, a greater focus on packaging and synthesising evidence for consumption, LKS offering value for money, and library staff seeking opportunities in the Knowledge Management (KM) agenda as ‘knowledge brokers’.

Key features of driver:
• Knowledge for healthcare builds on the vision laid out in Health Education England’s Framework 15, which asserted that future success of the healthcare system will be determined by the ability to ‘access, understand and interpret’ information.
• The framework identifies the key partners that LKS need to engage with, including NHS England, Public Health England and the Department of Health.
• The positive impact of LKS is demonstrated in case studies throughout the document.
• The framework looks forward to how LKS will develop over the next five years.
• LKS will offer personalised services that are proactively customer-focused.
• Embedded roles within clinical, commissioning and management teams will become standard practice.
• LKS staff will adopt enhanced roles beyond traditional library work, for example, in knowledge management and technology enhanced learning. HEE will oversee a review of back office LKS functions.
• Demonstrating impact on patient care, management decisions, commissioning and research continues to be a key challenge.
• Access to LKS needs to be easy and convenient with mobile and digital services as the norm.
• There will be a greater demand for synthesising evidence and re-packaging knowledge for end-user consumption.
• There’s an opportunity for input into the knowledge management agenda, ‘mobilising knowledge’ to support NHS priorities and using LKS staff as ‘knowledge brokers’. HEE will undertake a national review of NHS LKS and make recommendations for the redesign of services.
• HEE will implement a marketing strategy to raise awareness of LKS services and resources (social media will play a key part in this strategy)
• HEE will build on www.libraryservices.nhs.uk to develop a single knowledge hub for all NHS staff. A centralised e-resources team will be established to support the management of national core content.
• Local LKS leaders will be identified and nurtured and there will be potential changes in roles and new ways of working.
• The framework recognises that investors in LKS need good value for money and proposes that LKS can be streamlined by harnessing technology and greater collaboration between services. HEE will commission a Return on Investment study in LKS in NHS England and explore an equitable, sustainable funding model.
• LQAF will be refreshed to align with wider education and service monitoring processes. The national Impact Toolkit will also be refreshed.
• Section 7.E (p.47) identifies a series of performance metrics against which HEE will measure success against their objectives.

Primary audience: All NHS England organisations, LKS staff and decision-makers

Impact on library policy/practice:
• This is a pivotal publication which will affect our ways of working, our roles and our strategic plans and objectives. It offers a vision of the future of LKS that we should work towards and will inform our priorities and decision-making over the next five years.
• The framework acknowledges the successes and current good practice in LKS and provides some useful activity, staffing and funding data that may prove useful for library managers to feed into local reports.
• It may be useful to share the framework with the key players and decision-makers within your organisation with an analysis of the local implications.
• Section 5.5 (p.16) gives a useful overview of what implications the framework has for LKS staff.
• LKS may have training and development requirements to enable them to embrace the new roles and ways of working proposed in the framework. Staffing skill mix may need to be examined by those who manage LKS.
• More changes around national electronic content are to be expected, and the criteria for LQAF compliance may change in the years ahead.
• We will need to pursue more collaborative working with other services and partner organisations, for example, purchasing resources via consortia deals and delivering services jointly between organisations, in order to demonstrate value for money.

Date last updated: February 2015

Due for review: February 2016

Group member responsible: VT

No longer lost in translation

February 13, 2015 Comments Off on No longer lost in translation

This is a story by Outi Pickering from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Our interlibrary service occasionally provides articles in languages other than English when a

Traveller with globe

Image: (CC) http://pixabay.com/en/traveller-world-ball-globe-person-349963/

library user is doing a review which must include other languages. Oxford being very international, our users often have colleagues who can help with some of the languages – but not always, and this is where the library has been able to help. I’m a native speaker of Finnish; in addition, I can call myself fluent in Swedish and Italian and competent in German. As these languages are related to others which may be called for (Dutch, Spanish, Danish come to mind), I’ve been able to decipher a number of different languages sufficiently to say whether for instance the article is about inpatients only, whether there was co-morbidity, etc. The agreement is that if I can provide the information within half an hour, it’s a value added service given by the library, but if more time is needed – particularly if a proper translation is needed – I put my freelance translator’s hat on and do the work in my spare time and the user pays for it. Outcome: satisfied users who spread the word that the library is a useful place! We’re not planning to take this any further though since the service depends on one individual (though there could be others, depending on who we employ!), and we don’t advertise it as part of our official “menu”.

On another similar theme, a Greek junior doctor asked if I knew of anyone who could help her with her English. She didn’t want a language school but an individual who could help her get the feel of the language at a deeper level, and besides, due to her work she couldn’t commit herself to a course. I said I know one – my husband! He is a retired university lecturer (English language, specialising in linguistics) and needs to feel useful and have contacts outside the home. They reached an agreement, and both parties were delighted. In addition to the lessons at our house which my husband provided, we often went out all three together, and were introduced to the doctor’s friends when they visited! She has now moved away from Oxford, but we’re still in touch with her occasionally.

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