Celebrating 12 months as a Clinical Librarian at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust
My name is Hayley Beresford and I'm your Clinical Librarian. Today happens to be my work anniversary. Exactly one year ago on the 7th
December 2020 I joined the Library & Knowledge Services (LKS) team at
Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust (MTW) as a Clinical Librarian. During this
time I have been redeployed to support the Trust’s Covid-19 vaccination programme,
settled in to my new team, found my feet in the world of health librarianship, and
started to make inroads with the new service—all whilst navigating through a
pandemic! In celebration of this I thought I’d share a little bit about my role
and what I hope to achieve in 2022.
What is your role?
I am a Clinical Librarian. My job is to help staff make informed
decisions about patient care based on high-quality, relevant and trusted research
evidence.
What’s special about being a Clinical librarian is the setting. Clinical librarians can work on the
wards to identify information needs, facilitate knowledge mobilisation, and
constructively share ideas and evidence with both staff and patients. This is
achieved through expert searching, summarising, and synthesis of evidence, with
rapid searches being undertaken at the patient’s bedside to support point-of-care
decision-making.
As part of my role I also run 1:1 and group training sessions on evidence searching
and critical appraisal to equip staff with the knowledge, skills and confidence
to be able to identify the right evidence for the right question, and know when
and how to use this to improve their practice.
How has your previous
experience equipped you for your new role?
Before joining the library team at MTW I worked as a
research facilitator in the R&D department of an NHS acute hospital, where
my primary role was to help staff design and deliver their own homegrown
research projects. Being familiar with the health research landscape means I
understand the importance of originality, scholarly advancement, and creating a
robust rationale when designing new research – new research that will go on to generate new knowledge that will inform practice and lay the foundation for
future learning and innovation. Librarians, as evidence specialists and
‘sense-makers’, play a vital role in health innovation, and my prior experience
allows me to support this in my new role.
What do you want to
achieve with your role over the next 12 months?
Being visible and accessible at the point of decision-making, or as close to this as possible, is central to the clinical librarian role. My ambition for the next 12 months (and beyond) is to make the clinical librarian service a recognised driver of evidence-based practice across the Trust by:
- Increasing engagement across all clinical specialities through tailored offers that include:
- Pop-up library and ‘roadshows
- Specialised bulletins, boards, and book boxes within departments
- Journal and reading clubs
- Introducing a new Evidence Summary and Synthesis Service
- Working to integrate and formalise evidence searching into the R&D pathway for Trust-sponsored investigator-led projects
- Expanding and revamping our training offer to include 'Maintaining Evidence-Based Practice' and ‘Preparing for Publication’.
I am also working towards my professional registration with
the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), which
will allow me to become a Chartered Librarian.
What excites you most
about being a clinical librarian?
What excites me
the most about the role is being part a continuously evolving profession that
works collectively at the regional and national level to share best practice and
innovative ways of working to give our users the best experience.
What I enjoy most
is helping people, and there’s lots of opportunity to do this, whether it be helping
someone complete a qualification that is going to make a difference in their
practice, or enable them to make the next step in their career; conducting an
evidence search for ground-breaking piece of research that will revolutionise
assessment of a particular condition; or informing a treatment decision that
will improve the quality of life for a patient with chronic illness.
How does your role
fit with the Trust’s strategic objectives?
Continuous learning, improvement, and innovation is embodied
in the culture ambitions, PRIDE values, and leadership expectations outlined in
the ‘taking MTW to Outstanding’ narrative. The Trust’s commitment to empower
staff to be curious and providing the infrastructure and resources, via the
Learning and Libraries team, to use knowledge effectively, puts knowledge and evidence
at the forefront of professional development and clinical practice.
Clinical librarians play a part in this, and work as
‘knowledge brokers’ to help staff use the right
knowledge and evidence, at the right
time to achieve outstanding healthcare.
What library myth do
you want to debunk?
That librarians are old-fashioned, tweed-wearing, puritans
(there’s a whole literature on librarian stereotypes!), when, in reality, we’re
the trendiest and most en vogue of group of people you’re likely to meet –
well, in terms of health information anyway!
How can people get in
touch with you to find out more about the clinical librarian service?
People can contact me via email: hayley.beresford1@nhs.net, phone:
07935009762 or on twitter @HaBeresford
I can wait to hear from you!
