A talk delivered by Sarah Lewis at the Anybook Oxford Libraries Conference 2015 - Adapting for the Future: Developing Our Professions and Services, 21st July 2015.

1. Outreach librarians: the view
from the NHS
Sarah Lewis, Clinical Outreach Librarian
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

2.  Integrated Trust – acute and community, split into 5 clinical
divisions
 2 acute hospitals – Aylesbury (includes A&E) and High Wycombe
 5 community hospitals including Thame, Oxon
 Almost 6000 staff
 Covers all of Buckinghamshire except Milton Keynes
 National Spinal Injuries Centre – home of the paralympics
 Keogh Review
About Buckinghamshire Healthcare
NHS Trust

3.  Based in Postgraduate Education Centre at
Stoke Mandeville Hospital
 7 staff (3 part time) – includes library manager
and 3WTE qualified librarians
 Outreach librarians assigned to support
specific clinical teams
 Funded partly by Health Education Thames
Valley Wessex and Trust contributions
 Many of our online resources are purchased
at national or regional level
 Many of our library users or potential library
users are not based at Stoke Mandeville
and/or do not have ready access to PCs
 Many staff have not studied for a long time /
not confident in their IT skills
 We also support GP practices in Bucks
About the library

4. Who I am and what my job is
Clinical Outreach Librarian
Lead on library support for:
• Clinical Divisions of Integrated Medicine and also Integrated
Elderly Care
• Issues that relate to nursing staff in the Trust regardless of
division
• GP practices and community based staff
• Library training programme
Support means:
• Literature searches on behalf of staff for patient care, guidelines,
audits, research
• Training –literature searching, critical appraisal, study skills
• Outreach – presentations, inductions, pop up libraries, ward
rounds
• Support at journal clubs

5. Where I came from
Graduate Trainee,
University College
Suffolk
1996-1997
Included 3 months
in nursing library,
Ipswich Hospital
MA Library &
Information
Studies,
Loughborough
University
Dissertation on
clinical librarianship
(librarians on ward
rounds)
which led to the first
successful UK
clinical librarian
service in Leicester
1997-1998
Junior Subject
Librarian: Theology
& Distance Learning,
Westminster
College, Oxford –
later OBU
1998-2001
Copyright clearance
for distance learning
resource packs;
liaison with academic
departments;
literature searches;
support for summer
schools; basic internet
skills training;
Chartership
Knowledge Support
Librarian, Southern
Health NHS
Foundation Trust
Ward rounds in
medium secure unit for
mentally ill offenders;
library site manager –
including 1 move and 1
closure; 2 weeks in
Ghana supporting
library at Kintampo
Rural Health Training
School; Regional
Athens administrator
Mental health
Librarian, Berkshire
Shared Services
Literature searches,
current awareness,
training, visits to
community sites,
library site move;
literature search
protocols for NHS
researchers ; website
design
2001-2006 2006-2013

6. A day in the life of a
clinical outreach
librarian…
…is a decision
between the chair or
the trolley (would like
to say ipad but…)

7. A day in the life of… Or my to do list

8. Skills and attributes of an outreach
librarian

9. From To To
Responding to search requests Generating searches Anticipating searches
Sending lots of results Highly focussed selections
Sending unordered lists Grading results by quality of evidence Summarising results
Staying in the library Going out to clinical settings to understand
context
Receiving ‘thank you’ emails Evaluating impact of searches
7 day deadlines 48 hour turnaround Some sameday deadlines
3 or 4 searches a month Sometimes 20 or more searches a month
Development of searching skills

10. Development of training skills
From To To
Basic internet searching Literature searching Appraising quality of
evidence / statistics
Face to face training Using technology to deliver training
Training in the library Delivering training in clinical settings Remote/online training
‘Wing it’ style training Formal session planning and evaluation
Just power point presentations Facilitating groups / Prezi
Generic content Tailored to individual interests / skill level

11. Development of marketing skills
From To To
Working mainly in the library in reactive,
supportive role
Marketing yourself by being more visible in the Trust Gaining the trust of clinical staff
for them to see you as a valued
colleague
Ready made marketing materials from national
source and using generic promotional resources
Design and plan own marketing materials which can be
targeted to specific staff groups
From creating library displays and hosting events
in the library
Hosting stands at conferences, inductions, pop up
libraries
Getting involved Trust-wide
events
Leaflets, emails and websites Social media Apps?
Focussing on promoting our traditional library
services
Promoting our general information skills applicable to
other areas
Promoting new books received in the library Highlighting e-books – QR codes etc
Subject –based alerting services by email RSS feeds / Netvibes/ Yahoo Pipes Highly personalised, high impact
CA using collaborative database

12.  Five year Forward plan - extending integrated working between GPs,
social care, acute care
 Revalidation for nurses as well as doctors
 NHS planning becomes more localised
 7 day working
 Staff recruitment & retention
 Efficiency and value for money
 Ageing population with comorbidities
 Personalised care
 Quality and safety agenda
 Privatisation
 Research agenda
 Telehealthcare
 Expert patients
 More care at home rather than hospital
Looking to the future…the NHS
Agenda
NHS libraries are going to have to
work leaner & smarter, become more
digital, more persuasive and diversify
to meet these needs and to be seen
as an essential service

13. Ask
Find
AppraiseApply
Evaluate
How will my role develop in the
future?
Evidence-based practice cycle
Literature searches
• Making increasingly diffuse
sources of information
easier to discover – eg
mobile apps, clinical
information systems
• More support for
patient/carer groups – what
are their information needs?
• More complex searches
relating to patients with co-
morbidities
Increasing role in helping staff to
overcome barriers in putting
evidence into practice – coaching
skills
• Develop techniques/software/
use data analytics to summarise
findings more easily and for
more searches
Greater understanding of
research methodology to
help staff measure
effectiveness of initiatives and
also to measure library impact
Participate in Trust projects which
encourage innovation – understand the
process of launching a new idea and
getting it on the commercial market

14. How will my role develop in the
future?
We have an objective but undervalued view of different issues faced by teams
across the whole organisation (from IT to clinical audit to research to GP
practices) and barriers to the seamless flow of information
Knowledge Management

15.  Knowledge for Healthcare: a development
framework, 2014
 http://hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/blogs.dir/321/files/2014/12/Knowledge-for-healthcare-
framework.pdf
 “The healthcare library and knowledge workforce
requires enhanced skills, including synthesising
information, knowledge management, marketing,
website design and usability testing”
The national view
National training programme

16.  How do we develop our skills so we can harness the power of
cognitive computing whilst retaining our value as information
professionals?
And coming in the not too distant
future…

17. Sarah.lewis@buckshealthcare.nhs.uk
01296 315427
www.buckshealthcare.nhs.uk/library
http://buckshealthcare.nhs.libguides.com/library
Contact details