NHFT virtual book club meeting #25 - Miss Benson's Beetle

Following our trip round the globe with David Mitchell's extraordinary novel Ghostwritten, we are going back to 1950 with Rachel Joyce's award winning book, Miss Benson's Beetle.

It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist.

Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk everything, break all the rules, and at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves.

Find out more about the book in this handy video introduction from the author.

'A girl's own adventure...This is Rachel Joyce's best book yet ...Exciting, moving and full of unexpected turns.' The Times

'A joy of a novel' The Guardian

The next meeting will be Thursday the 8th of June at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room. 

Coronation bank holiday closure

 All the libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 8th of May for the coronation bank holiday.

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members 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 9th at all of our sites.

Updated Clinical Key app now available

An updated version of the Clinical Key mobile app is now available.

Clinical Key is an easy to use resource with a wealth of content including:

• Over 800 full text electronic journals, including the complete Lancet series of titles
• Over 960 full text electronic books
• Over 1,300 clinical overviews giving comprehensive clinical topic summaries 
• Over 2,500 drug monographs by Gold Standard
• Over 300 procedures consult topics
• Clinical guidelines (including NICE)
• Videos and other multimedia content
• Patient education materials in a variety of languages

Clinical Key also allows you to:

• Capture the information you use to develop CME credits
• Create presentations from multimedia content
• Store favourite items for easy access
• Save searches

The enhanced and redesigned mobile app is available now for iOS (Apple) and Android devices. There is a quick reference sheet for guidance on how to download, authenticate and optimize the mobile experience.

You can also access Clinical Key online with a web browser.

For both App and online access, you will need a trust OpenAthens account. NHFT and NGH staff and students on placement can register for one here https://openathens.nice.org.uk/.

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.

NHFT virtual book club meeting #24 - Ghostwritten

Following our rather tense (and sometimes painful) visit to Syria with former CIA analyst David McCloskey's spy thriller, Damascus Station, we are moving around the globe with David Mitchell's extraordinary debut novel, Ghostwritten.

“Are you what you believe yourself to be?”

Ghostwritten is a novel of nine interconnected stories, taking us to Tokyo, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, St Petersburg, London, New York and Ireland.

It weaves together a host of characters including a doomsday cult member in Japan, a Mongolian gangster, a woman on a holy mountain who talks to a tree, and a late night New York DJ.

Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature, the novel was described as "an astonishing debut" by the Independent and "a dazzling piece of work" by the Washington Post.

The next meeting will be Thursday the 4th of May at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room. 

Easter opening

 All the libraries will be unstaffed on Friday the 7th and Monday the 10th of April for the Easter bank holidays.

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 11th at all of our sites.

Health literacy data

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions, and is a major issue for health care services. 

In the UK 43% of adults struggle to understand written health related information and this rises to 61% when numeric information is included (Rowlands, 2015).

Health Education England, along with the University of Southampton have created an online tool that provides estimates of low health literacy, which can be viewed at the level of local authorities. 

The tool can further be combined with low health numeracy to give an overall picture of the challenges in producing accessible health information for the local population.

As well as searching by area, the site has a clickable map that allows you to explore the data visually.

You can find the online tool here http://healthliteracy.geodata.uk/

NHFT virtual book club meeting #23 - Damascus Station

Following our aquatic adventure in 1940's Manhattan Beach, we are off to Syria with former CIA analyst David McCloskey's spy thriller, Damascus Station.

CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship creating danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of another American spy. 

But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Asad’s spycatcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the Republican Guard.

Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with murder, fear, and rebellion, and drawing on real events and authentic CIA tradecraft, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

"The power of this book is that it tells this devastating story through the eyes of those who suffered and survived because of love, the human relationship, and the power of what makes life worth living.“ Leon E. Panetta, former Director of the CIA and former Secretary of Defence

'One of the best - and most authentic - spy thrillers in years' The Times

The next meeting will be Thursday the 30th of March at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room. 

It’s National Apprenticeship Week!

For those of you on your apprenticeship journey we want to make sure you know how the library can support you in your work and studies. We can give you ‘space to think and knowledge to act’:

If you need space to work, away from your department and home, we have 3 libraries (at Berrywood Hospital; Northampton General Hospital and Isebrook Hospital in Wellingborough) and you can use any or all of them. NGH has 24/7 opening for members so you can use it in the evenings or weekends. All 3 libraries have computers and Wi-Fi if you want to bring your own laptop.

You will need to find information throughout your course, we have a wide stock, both print and online, of clinical and non-clinical books and journals, including books on study skills. If you can’t find what you need locally we can usually get hold of a copy for you from another library. We can also help you develop the skills you need to find information from the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub.

Interested in how we can help?

Fill in the form linked from here to join the library or contact one of the libraries if you have any questions:

Berrywood Library | 03000 271585 | berrywoodlibrary@nhft.nhs.uk

Isebrook Library | 03000 272095 | isebrooklibrary@nhft.nhs.uk

Richmond Library, NGH | 01604 545929 | richmondlibrary@nhft.nhs.uk