SCONUL Offices / 4 November 2011
Meeting notes
Present: Brian Cliifford, Andrea Peace, Gary Birkenhead, David Stewart, Erica Gavillet, Chris Fowler, Ann Rossiter, Guy Daines.
Apologies: Elizabeth Newbold, Betsy Anagnostelis.
1. Welcome
The group welcomed Erica Gavillet who is representing UMHLG.
2. Minutes of the last meeting
· Item 1: Replace “library services” with “library leads”.
3. Matters arising
· Item 6b: Noted that the Public Health Information and Intelligence Strategy has not yet been published. A link has been made with those developing this and libraries’ views have been fed in.
· Noted the publication of the revised NHS constitution and that there is scope for papers and policies from this group to identify links to this. Noted that the Secretary of State now has a specific responsibility for research and information under the new constitution.
· Noted that a survey is being conducted by Ann Weist as to which authorities still have Chief Knowledge Officers. DS to follow up with her and consideration will be given at the next meeting as to whether a joint event will be desirable.
4. Updates on restructuring of the NHS
· Following the passing of the Bill by the Lords, the working assumption is now that the legislation will go through largely unchanged.
· Noted the formation of Health Education England as a shadow body, alongside the NHS Commissioning Board for England and Public Health England. Each body has a lead who is responsible for developing the organisation, all of which are set to launch on 1 April 2013.
· Noted that Christine Outram has been appointed to lead the new Shadow Health Education Board with the title of Senior Responsible Officer. SHALL is investigating whether she might speak to a meeting of librarians.
· The NHS Commissioning Board will have responsibility for strategy on commissioning and most of the money will pass through Commissioning Board’s hands. It will have four large sub-national sectors (effectively regional offices). The Department of Health is coming to the view that, on the ground, some commissioning bodies are too small to function effectively, so it likely that some mergers will take place.
· At the local level there will be Local Education and Training Boards (LET Boards) made up of all the local trusts, which will be responsible for spending the educational money. It is not yet clear what kind of organisations they are going to be – whether they are going to be social enterprises, new NHS bodies or hosted by an NHS trust.
· The Government has decided to retain the NHS Future Forum, and has given it responsibility for education and the IT strategy. The Forum has just finished a listening exercise on education and training. Guidance is now due in January.
· Public Health England (PHE) is the new strategic body for public health. There is discussion about where the local level staff will be based, given that this responsibility is going into the local authorities. Ruth Hussey has been seconded to run PHE – SHALL knows her and has been in contact. As a result SHALL is now mentioned in the public health strategy.
· There are major cuts happening within trusts to try and meeting the £20 billion in efficiency savings being demanded by government. There is a possibility that trusts may merge down the track.
· The group needs to be alert to the danger that David Nicholson may look to education funding within the NHS to try and address the shortfall in funding in some trusts.
· The group needs to maintain a watching brief for new developments and new publications, and for the opportunity to promote the importance of library and information services.
· Action: all to email around their network of contacts to see if anyone knows Christine Outram.
· Action: Following this, the group will ask for a meeting either through such a contact, or directly.
· To prepare for this meeting, the group will produce a briefing which sets out the importance of library and information services to the education and on-going support of health professionals. This should include the requirement to incorporate strategic advice on library and information services into the work of the HEE at a senior level. We should also argument for the HEE to ensure that the value of existing established HE-NHS networks is recognised and that they are not eroded in the development of the new model for the NHS. We should also argue that LET Boards are given support to understand the importance of library and information services and provided with some leadership in this area.
· Action: AR to produce an initial draft of the briefing and share with David in preparation for the meeting.
4. Access to NHS Core Content
· BA, CF and EG have been campaigning on this issue and have sent a communication to all relevant HEIs. Letters went out to universities giving them information and asking them to cascade the letter down to their librarians.
· Action: CF to send AR the text for an e-mail on this to be distributed via lis-SCONUL.
· Action: CF to send AP the text of letter which has been issued in advance of the CHILL meeting on 10 November.
5. GMC reports
· Noted that it is open to the Group to distribute the report The State of Medical Education and Practice in the UK more widely. Noted that pages 55-6; 74, 93-4, and 102 contain information relevant to library and information services.
· Noted that this publication is going to be produced each year and that there is an opportunity both to comment this time and to suggest areas in which the GMC might want to consider lis-services as part of medical careers.
· Action: All to feed comment back to BC by 18 November.
· Action: BC to go back to GMC with our comments on the document.
6. Updates from Group Members
· UMHLG is running a number of events, including its Spring Forum (5 March). The theme will be mobile applications and technologies. It is also holding a joint event with the MRC w/c 26 March around bibliometrics, the REF and impact. The Summer conference is going to be on quality outcomes and will be held in July, possibly in York.
· HLG is looking for a new Chair, starting in January, and for a policy lead. It is also planning a conference in Glasgow on 12/13 July 2012: Health Libraries under the Microscope: Protecting your Formula. The deadline for abstracts is 30 November.
· SHALL’s Chair this year is Richard Osborne. He has agreed a work plan for the year, the objectives of which are keeping on top of changes in the NHS, and ensuring that Library leads survive in some form. SHALL had a meeting in September of the full membership which included a presentation from Chris Jeffries. SHALL’s next meeting is 1 December. SHALL has responded to the NHS Future Forum consultation on education. Action: DS to copy this consultation response to the group.
· CHILL – Royal College of Midwives collection has been in mothballs for some time, but the Royal College of O&G will be taking over the materials by the end of November. Midwives will be able to use the library. The RCN are undertaking a big building project, creating a member space (which will incorporate library and exhibition space). The Family Planning Association has lost its library service.
· SCONUL has announced proposals for a National Digital Library service.
· CILIP has produced a response to the Open Public Services White Paper which provided a platform to set out CILIP’s attitudes to the future of public services. This will be issued to stakeholders in the next few weeks. It has also submitted a detailed response on the government’s open data consultation.
· RLUK has been focusing on impact and measuring quality. Members are looking at working together to compare operations and service activities between HEIs (although there may be difficulties arising from competition law).
7. Meeting with SCIE
· BC has been talking to Diana Gwynne-Smith about a meeting and she has expressed willingness to come to talk to the next HSG meeting, presuming an earlier start can be made. Noted that the next meeting will start at 11.00 at the CILIP offices. Action: BC to go back to her to confirm.
8. Update on joint purchasing activities
· There is some scepticism about whether these can be made to work given the challenges which arise from licensing. Effectively they are about collaborative access rather than new purchasing.
9. HSG work programme
· This is set out in the minutes of the last meeting.
· Noted that NHS Futures Forum has a web chat about education and training.
· Action: BC to write to the SCL Health Group to invite them to attend the July meeting.
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