Consultation on the future of Isebrook Hospital Library

As a service we are conscious that many Trust staff do not have direct access to a library and there is a need to develop more services that are delivered in the workplace and outside of the library sites to improve the equity of access to our services.

As part of this development we have been reviewing the levels of use at Isebrook Library, which have been relatively low since the end of the pandemic.

We are proposing to close the library at the Isebrook hospital site in order to enable more outreach services that can be delivered at all trust sites.

Closing the library would free up library staff time and enable members of the team to go out to trust sites across the county, potentially delivering training, dealing with enquiries and better enabling us to ensure the evidence you need is available at your location of choice.

However, we are aware that for some staff, Isebrook library is a useful resource, so we are asking our users to comment on this proposal and what the impact of the closure might be.

If you have a view on the closure of the library at Isebrook Hospital, we would really like to hear from you.

Please take a few minutes to complete our brief online survey and tell us what you think https://forms.office.com/e/3Ragcyiaii

The consultation survey will be open from Friday the 28th of April until the 25th of May.

May Bank Holiday closure

 All the Libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 1st of May for the bank holiday.

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members over the Easter period via our swipe card system at the Richmond Library.

The Berrywood and Isebrook Libraries will be closed over the bank holiday.

We reopen as normal on Tuesday the 2nd at all of our sites.

Online critical appraisal skills training

There is now a full suite of critical appraisal skills training available on the NHS eLearning for Healthcare Hub developed by Health Education England.

Critical appraisal is a vital skill in today's evidence-based healthcare environment, allowing you to read a piece of research, understand what it is saying, how useful it is, and how likely it is to be true. 

The training consists of 8 separate modules, each taking around 30 minutes to complete. There is an introductory module and the rest of the programme covers all the main research methods in health care.  

eLFH critical appraisal modules

The programme is ideal as a starting point for those new to critical appraisal, but would also make an excellent refresher if you want to brush up on your skills or are interested in one type of research (e.g. randomised control trials or systematic reviews).

The modules are aimed at all NHS and social care staff and are freely available to anyone who wants to register to use the eLFH Hub. They are also accessible with an NHS OpenAthens account.

The eLFH Hub can also record your training and produce reports on what you have completed, which may be useful for revalidation or being able to demonstrate CPD.

You can access the training here. 

You can also access a two-part critical appraisal training programme via the Library Service.

Access the Oxford Handbooks (and more) online

Did you know, you can access over 250 titles from Oxford University Press online? This includes the Oxford Handbooks and Oxford Specialist Handbooks. Recent additions to the collections include the latest editions of popular titles such as Drugs in palliative care, Oxford handbook of clinical surgery and Training in ophthalmology, and new titles such as Oxford clinical guidelines: newly qualified doctor, Handbook of patient safety and the Oxford handbook of sleep medicine.

You can view the full selection of titles available via our catalogue or via the NHS OUP site. To access the books you will need to login with your OpenAthens username and password. If you don’t have an account you can register for one here.