Overcoming the barriers activity session:
Want: Outreach training with public library staff in quality health info for the public
Problems: Finding the right contacts; their drivers / motivation; treading on other’s toes
Solutions:Find out about their strategies; Embed the training (health training) eg: with new staff / inductions
Want: Set up involvement with Pat Info Centre for complex queries
Problems: no historical partnership; not in library policy
Solutions: Talk to pat info centre staff – start the partnership dialogue; Get acknowledgment from management; add to policy
Want: To get more people visiting the family info centre
Problems: It is not in the main building anymore
Solutions: Outreach; Greater presence in outpatients; raise awareness with clinicians so they will recommend patients to visit as matter of course.
Want: Make contact with public libraries
Problems: Don’t know who is best contact; who can make decisions
Solutions: is there a health champion?
Want: Develop policies to manage volunteer-run service point
Problems: Risks/ limitations of what volunteers can offer
Solutions: Share policies from other trusts
Want: Set up Patient Info centre from scratch
Problems: Funding; Plan/strategy; scope / limitations of scope; who to work with; attitudes (staff); duty of care
Solutions: Policies and procedures; clear focus
Group Activity Session:
Action / Table 1 / Table 2 / Table 3 / Table 4 / Priority- Set up a procedure for answering complex PI queries from staff
- Get involved in PI leaflets development and review panel
- Promote the library resources to PALS, PI officers etc
- Give patients/carers reference access to library
- Support clinicians in provision of PI
- Support Health Awareness Campaigns eg: Diabetes Week
- Hold a selection of PI leaflets/books/DVD
- Promotion of Mood Boosting Books / Six Book Challenge
- Input to Trust website information
- Input to Trust PI Strategy
- Offer support to public libraries
- Join Inspire or revisit lapsed membership
- Make your library open to referrals from other sector libraries
- Support Health & Wellbeing of staff
- Find out what your public libraries offer eg: Books on Prescription
- Familiarise library staff with
- Include in library induction for Trust staff
- Offer research support for Information Prescriptions in Trust
- Get involved in Health Information Week
- Include provision of PI in your Library Strategy
- *Raise awareness of Trust’s PI Centre
UR = Upper right quadrant – most useful to patients/public and most easy to implement
UL = Upper left quadrant – easy to implement but less useful to patients/public
LR = lower right quadrant – harder to implement but more useful to patients/public
LL = lower left quadrant – hard to implement and least useful to patients/public
Number in brackets is number of people on that table who have done / are doing that action already
* Additional actions suggested
Priority = a summary of the results giving the order (starting with 1) of ease of implementation and effectiveness
Additional comments made during the group session:
- Action
- Comments
- 1
- Set up a procedure for answering complex PI queries from staff
- BCH has procedure to share; Procedure easy to set up but getting clinicians to come to us on patient’s behalf is more difficult. Hard and not useful. Not directly to patients.
- 2
- Get involved in PI leaflets development and review panel
- BCH has procedure to share; Huge amount of work and not enough resources – link with patient experience would be useful. Not easy. Part of our role? Lots of problems. What advice would we give? Easy if local support. What support can we offer? Backlog of leaflets to review because can’t get volunteers on panel. Not sure who is on panel.
- 3
- Promote the library resources to PALS, PI officers etc
- PALS are very self-contained and not inclined to use library; link with expert patient group useful to patients; was interpreted as promoting to PALS by some on the table and directly to patients by others. Tried to contact PALS – no response.
- 4
- Give patients/carers reference access to library
- Depends on resources, location. WHL do. Very little take up – welcome to come. Easy to implement – ease of use depends on other services. Not encouraged, hard to manage, train staff to deal with public, separate collections? Access – physical and electronic. Local conditions are a problem. Some clinical staff have issue with public in libraries – confidentiality issues.
- 5
- Support clinicians in provision of PI
- Literature searches, enquiries etc. Could help clinicians provide info, could be easy to give if done on signposted websites, link with PALS for funding to provide cards
- 6
- Support Health Awareness Campaigns eg: Diabetes Week
- All do display boards. Of limited use due to specialist nature of each week, depends on areas you can advertise. Not sure how useful these displays are. Can display in library only - not allowed to add to notice-boards in Trust. Benefits depend on location eg: taking to GP surgery would be useful.
- 7
- Hold a selection of PI leaflets/books/DVD
- Easy to do, lots of free resources; access issues; Leaflets easy to implement with funding; storage and access? Fewer free now.Useful for patients. Duplication of info from elsewhere. Budget may be an issue. Access problems. Less useful in the library
- 8
- Promotion of Mood Boosting Books / Six Book Challenge
- WHL do 6 Book Challenge. 6 Book Challenge – take up poor. HR dept are backing one group. If staff morale is boosted then patients would benefit
- 9
- Input to Trust website information
- Depends on IT policies. Easy if the library wants to. Difficult to implement. Getting permission may be the issue.
- 10
- Input to Trust PI Strategy
- In BCH and Lincolnshire the Health librarian wrote this. People not engaged in this. Have we got one? Who is responsible for it?
- 11
- Offer support to public libraries
- Sharing. Worcestershire – joint public & Univ library. Easy to set up and public libraries keen. Not easy in London. Finding out who to contact can be the problem.
- 12
- Join Inspire or revisit lapsed membership
- Very useful – needs motivation. Inspire found to be a useful forum. Is it free? How do you join?
- 13
- Make your library open to referrals from other sector libraries
- Doesn’t have to be a physical loan. Links to Inspire. Judgement to make on amount of support/resource we can offer. Not much take up so doesn’t take up much time but v useful to those that do use it
- 14
- Support Health & Wellbeing of staff
- Is part of policy
- 15
- Find out what your public libraries offer eg: Books on Prescription
- Easy to do and useful to know for signposting
- 16
- Familiarise library staff with
- Will need to check it out first. Not seen yet
- 17
- Include in library induction for Trust staff
- We are not part of induction. Time on induction needed for other training
- 18
- Offer research support for Information Prescriptions in Trust
- Need to find the contacts. V successful in Worcestershire
- 19
- Get involved in Health Information Week
- Part of strategy. Targeted but not reaching huge audience. Difficult to implement in schools, easier in supermarkets
- 20
- Include provision of PI in your Library Strategy
- Is already there. Easy to put in strategy but not so easy to implement
Recommendations:
•Promote yourself- Most NHS Libraries are already demonstrating that they play an important role in the provision of patient/public information, this role should be promoted to maximise the impact and their recognition with trust management and future funding provision. Primarily focus on supporting clinicians in provision of PI and marketing this service to clinicians so they know what you offer.
•Actively seek links with in-house patient information providers PALS, Comms, Health Promotion, Patient Info Centre, Website editors etc to explore widening your presence within the trust
•LQAF - SHALL CHI group have suggested changes to the guidance wording for 5.3l to help libraries realise that they are often more compliant than they might think – give this more thought when completing LQAF. The key difference between partial and full compliance is whether you ‘promote’ the services you offer.
Actions:
•Make contact with local Public Libraries– ask SG for contacts in West Mids
•Make them aware of content of your reference library
•Arrange a procedure for referral of complex queries
•Librarian exchange / job shadowing / visits
•Ask about their health stock – Books on Prescription booklist
•Join Inspire or revisit if lapsed - Make your library open to referrals from other sector libraries – current members will tell you that this does not result in floods of referrals! (I can out you in touch with other members if you want to know more)
•Provide a literature searching facility to staff(set up a procedure first)
•producing patient information leaflets
•from the Patient Info Centre / PALS etc
•for Information Prescription projects
•Health Information Week – Get involved – 2nd-8th July -
•Reading for Wellbeing for staff and public – promoting the Six Book Challenge and Mood Boosting Books
•Raise awareness of it is a useful signposting site (make part of library induction for staff if feasible)
•Include PI actions in your strategy/policy docs
•Support Awareness Weeks/Months if you have notice-board space – see events diary -
•Get involved in Trust’s Patient Information Review Group
•Take a look at Every Contact Counts tutorial - (this could be used with to signpost to)
•If you would like to be part of the Patient Info Centre Mentor group, either as a mentor or as a learner – give SG your email.