Celebrating NHS Knowledge and Library Services in England

This June we celebrate our second NHS Knowledge and Library Services Awareness Week (#KLSNAW). And, for a full week, we are celebrating the work of an invaluable service to healthcare, both locally and nationally.

Health Education England’s own Knowledge and Library Services team plan to promote all the great work that has been done since the launch of the national strategy – Knowledge for Healthcare – in January 2021.

Not only have we continued to deliver high quality products and services to support frontline staff and local library teams, but we have also launched many new initiatives including:

• appointing 15 knowledge specialists into primary care, testing the value of this direct support locally with a view of expanding the offer nationally

• the launch of a Knowledge and Library Hub, bringing 24/7 digital access to vast collection of information, learning resources and research all from a single platform

• extended our commitment to provide BMJ Best Practice, evidence-based decision-making tool, free to the NHS in England

• awarded the first round of funding to grass-roots projects to drive health and digital literacy at a local level

• launched the NHS Knowledge for Healthcare Learning Academy providing CILIP accredited learning for all healthcare knowledge specialists
• launched the digital knowledge mobilisation self-assessment tool which helps health organisations make better use of evidence and knowledge

But what is really important about #KLSNAW is the opportunity to shine a light on the invaluable work of all NHS knowledge and library specialists working directly with frontline staff across England.

As professional teams, knowledge and library specialists work closely with health and care staff, trainees and students, providing a unique expertise to help individuals grow professionally and personally throughout their career journey.

In practice, this means that knowledge services give frontline teams the gift of time to focus on patients and ultimately improve patient care and outcomes. Their positive impact helps take the ‘heavy lifting’ out of bringing reliable, up to date evidence to healthcare, driving informed decision making and delivering real change.

Locally, NHS knowledge and library services generally offer a library learning space on site as well as delivering remote services, ensuring knowledge and evidence is at the fingertips of staff and learners.

We plan to host the awareness week every two years from now on – but don’t forget, there is an NHS Knowledge and Library Service there for you 24/7!

Find you local NHS Library

We’d love your help to spread the word about the amazing work of NHS knowledge and library services and take this opportunity to shine a light on the positive impact of NHS knowledge and library services during our awareness week.

We have posters and social media artwork (as PDF and J-pegs).

Local knowledge and library service teams can download resources from the workspace.

Other partners – please send us a message and we will send you artwork for poster and social media.