HealthInformation News March2016

This newsletter is intended for staff who provide health information to the public to keep informed of latest news and resources available in the Health Information field. If you would like to submit a news item – email

News

Guidance for providing Patient and PublicInformation - Guidance has been produced by the Patient and Public Information Task and Finish Group as part of the Service Transformation work stream of Knowledge for Healthcare. The Guidance is aimed at Health Librarians but some of it is applicable to other staff groups and sectors and includes an Ideas Bank and a list of useful websites. It is available here.

A long and winding road: improving communication with patients in the NHS - Marie Curie have published a report warning that poor communication in the NHS has a profound impact on patient care, staff burnout and public funds.It argues that inadequacies in communication are damaging medical care and outcomes, and wasting much-needed NHS resources. The authors estimate that the total cost, in England alone, is likely to be in excess of £1 billion a year.The report brings together evidence on the problem, its scale and cost. It lays out why improved communication matters.It examines a number of approaches to improving communication including:

Training healthcare professionals in communication.

Clinical nurse specialists.

Intervention such as prompted question sheets, recording conversations, doctor pre commitment, prompts on clinical screens, interventions that support adherence to medication .

The full report can be accessed on the Marie Curie website here.

How can we judge and assure quality in health information? - PIF has launched new web content on judging and assuring quality in health information.The better the quality of health information, the more useful, relevant and accessible it is, and the more effective it will be in encouraging shared decision making, self care, long-term condition management and informed choice.As health information becomes increasingly recognised as an integral part of healthcare, the need to be able to understand, identify and measure quality has grown.There is currently no single source for judging or assuring quality in health information. PIF’s web content reviews key issues, and brings together a range of examples of the kinds of resources that might help.Different resources suit different situations, and not every resource will be relevant to you. The aim of this content is to provide a central location for this information to help you easily find things that most suit your needs.The web content covers:

Top tips

Quality and accessiblehealth information

Quality marks, endorsements and awards

Quality guidance and standards

Tools for assuring quality andusefulresources

Demands for quality

If you spot any gaps in the content, or would like to let us know what you think please contact us here!

Community engagement to reduce health inequalities - NICE has published a final version of their guideline on community engagement.This guideline covers community engagement approaches to reduce health inequalities, ensure health and wellbeing initiatives are effective and help local authorities and health bodies meet their statutory obligations.It highlights the importance of making additional efforts to involve local communities at risk of poor health. This includes people who are vulnerable, marginalised, isolated or living in deprived areas.It includes consideration of how organisations can make as easy as possible for people to get involved including:

  • Identify barriers to engagement and what types of communication would be most effective for different groups
  • Providing information in plain English and locally spoken languages for non English speakers.
  • Ensuring timing and venues are accessible to all, including considering the needs of disabled people, andproviding childcare support.

The guideline is available on theNICE website, along with supporting evidence, as well as all thestakeholder commentsreceived during consultation.NICE have also produced anequality impact assessmentto support the guideline.The recommendations in the guideline have been included in aNICE Pathway, which is an online tool that brings together all related NICE guidance and associated products in a set of interactive, topic-based diagrams.

How reading groups make you happy | The Summer Reading Challenge booklist 2016 - One of the great things about reading is that it can be both a solitary activity and something that you share with friends, colleagues and family. Over 1,500 people responded to our latest survey about the benefits of reading groups and the results were overwhelmingly positive: 95% of respondents said being part of a group made them happy while others said their reading group acted as a support network. We hope these figures, and the tips and ideas we've gathered, will encourage more people to set up a group. Read more on our Reading Groups for Everyone website.The Summer Reading Challenge, which takes part at libraries across the UK every summer, is another great example of sharing reading with others. Last year 9,000 young volunteers helped children to keep reading over the summer and this year, as part of Reading Hack, we hope we will be able to inspire many more. Take a look at these recommended reads for young volunteers, compiled by Reading Hack groups in South Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, perfect for keeping teen readers everywhere entertained over the summer.This year’s Summer Reading Challenge is called ‘The Big Friendly Read’ and links up with the global year-long Roald Dahl 100 celebrations, honouring the world’s no. 1 storyteller. We’re all very excited about it and we’ve worked with librarians, industry professionals and children in Chatterbooks groups to select a fantastic list of 72 recommended reads for this year’s Challenge. You can see the books here; it looks like it will be a great summer.

Reading Well for young people: The latest Books on Prescription scheme for young people called Reading Well is being run through public libraries and is being launched nationally on the 12th April 2016. It provides a booklist of 35 titles selected to provide young people aged 13 to 18 years with advice, information and support to help them to understand their mental health and wellbeing. It covers 12 topics and conditions including anxiety, depression, self-harm, body image and eating disorders, as well as life experiences such as bullying. The booklist features self-help and psycho-education material, as well as memoirs, graphic novels and fiction. How it works:Health professionals offering support to young people, such as GPs, children and young people’s IAPT practitioners, school counsellors and school nurses, can recommend helpful reading using the booklist in the leaflet. The reading material can be used as a stand-alone treatment, or can be recommended alongside medication and/or talking therapies. Many health professionals find the scheme helpful as part of a supported treatment programme. The scheme can also be used on a self-referral basis. The books are available on the open shelves in public libraries and free for anyone to borrow. Signposting to further healthcare services is provided within the user guide. For example: Walsall Libraries have purchased 6 collections of the books, 1 each for Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Central Library, Darlaston, and Willenhall and 8,000 leaflets about the scheme.

Department of Health prioritises supporting people to make decisions about their health and care- The Department of Health have published a plan for 2015 – 2020 describing their priorities over this period.The seventh objective of theShared delivery plan is to enable people and communities to make decisions about their own health and care.It specifies that:

  • Partnership working between the voluntary and statutory sectors will be increased to help reduce health inequalities.
  • People will be asked to share their views and opinions on health and care to influence the design of new services.
  • All patients will be involved in decisions about their own health and care, including greater use of personal care budgets, supported by health professionals who treat them as individuals with unique needs and aspirations.
  • Informed choice will be supported through patient access to health care information such as patient records. And patients will have access to their electronic health records whilst retaining the right to opt-out of their records being shared electronically.
  • Digital technologies will be used to give people easier access to services, enable them to provide feedback on their care, and take more control over their health and wellbeing.

The Shared delivery plan can be accessed here.

What does good person centred care for health and wellbeing look like? -The Realising the Value consortium have published a new reportAt the heart of health: Realising the value of people and communities.The report brings together evidence on what good person- and community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing look like and their potentially wide-reaching benefits.It identifies that person- and community-centred approaches broadly fit within three main categories:

  • Approaches that enable people to look after themselves better, including understanding their condition, managing their symptoms and improving their diet, and education tailored to particular conditions.
  • Approaches that enable people to have meaningful relationships that help them improve their health and wellbeing through, for example, peer support networks and community groups.
  • Approaches that enable people to work collaboratively with professionals, such as collaborative consultations and health coaching.

The report includes a wide range of evidence and practical examples to support the work of commissioners and other decision-makers seeking to find ways to empower individuals and communities in their health and care.Papers can be found here.

PHE launches new campaign to encourage healthier lifestyles for adults - Adults need to implement lifestyle changes to avoid serious illness later in life, a new Public Health England campaign says. The campaign, One You, aims to help adults include increased sleep, exercise and healthy eating in their lifestyles, as well as reducing smoking, drinking and stress. Illnesses related to behaviour cause around 40% of deaths in the UK and cost the NHS more than £11bn each year. The risks get worse as people get older, with 42% of adults in mid-life living with at least one long-term health condition which increases their risk of early death and disability. Professor Sir Muir Gray, clinical advisor for the One You campaign, said: “Although it has been customary to blame people for their ‘lifestyle’ we now appreciate that we need to take into account the environmental pressures that make it difficult to make healthy choices, having to sit 8 hours a day at work for example, and then drive an hour home.” He added that One You is designed to help every individual identify not only their risks but also the pressures they face in their life and the stress that results, and then support them with personalised tools and advice. The NHS has also announced a new ‘healthy towns’ initiative, to provide funding to towns to develop environments which foster healthy lifestyles. Professor Kevin Fenton, national director at Public Health England, said: “For the first time, Public Health England is launching a campaign that talks to adults directly about all of the things they can do to improve their health. “The scale of the campaign is unprecedented and includes new public and commercial partnerships with Asda, Slimming World, BBC Get Inspired and the Ministry of Defence. “This will see One You in every community, on every high street, in local health services, on websites and in social media. We want everyone across the country to know that it is never too late to get your health back on track.”

How can we tell how safe and effective mobile health apps are?- The Commonwealth Fund has published a briefing on the development of an evaluation framework to assess the patient engagement, quality and safety of mobile health applications.Through a systematic search of iOS (Apple) and Android app stores, and an analysis of apps targeting individuals with chronic illnesses, the authors assessed the degree to which apps are likely to be useful in patient engagement efforts.Usefulness was determined based on the following criteria: description of engagement, relevance to the targeted patient population, consumer ratings and reviews, and most recent app update.376 iOS apps and 569 Android apps were assessed. 161 (43%) iOS apps and 152 (27%) Android apps were assessed as possibly useful, of which 126 apps existed on both platforms.For apps that appeared potentially useful the authors developed an initial set of general criteria to evaluate them on the basis of patient engagement, quality, and safety.Patient engagement was defined as the ability for apps to enable collaboration, activation and participation, information-sharing, and decision-making in one’s own health. The study evaluated the degree to which apps may enable patients to increase their engagement, including a consideration of the support needs of patients at different levels of activation.Quality was considered in terms of reliability of information for the targeted population, recommendability, and usability. This included the use of guidelines and clinical experts involvement in the app development process. It also included an assessment of patient involvement in app development to gauge the relevance of health information.Two aspects of safety were considered: the ability for an app to handle “dangerous” information entered by a patient (e.g., low blood sugar or suicidal thoughts) and the commitment of the app developer to respect patient information privacy and security.The paper provides three case studies showing how their framework can be used to evaluate apps.An evaluation of 143 apps targeting high-need, high-cost patients using the framework proposed in the brief has been completed and results will be published later this year.The briefing paper can be accessed here.

Public library impact: 4 new databases of examples published-Carnegie UK Trust have published four new databases of examples that show public libraries’ impact on four policy areas: economic, education, culture and society.

Events

Friday 18th March 2016 - UK Health Literacy Conference in Glasgow. The 4th UK Health Literacy conference will be opened by Maureen Watt, Minister for Public Health Scotland and chairedby Jo Protheroe, Chair of the Health Literacy Group UK, and Graham Kramer, National Clinical Lead for Self-Management and Health Literacy in Scotland.They will be joined by high profile speakers from across the UK, sharing current thinking, research and practice in a series of parallel sessions and workshops. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Scotland, Catherine Calderwood, will conclude theday.During the day, you will have the opportunity to attend parallel sessions on innovative work, broadly separated into four topics: healthy literacy and the healthcare workforce, mental and physical health, intellectual disabilities and the co-creation of health and health literacy. Each of these sessions comprises four presentations from a diverse range of sectors.Following lunch, workshops will focus on ground-breaking health literacy projects in Scotland and Belfast, Ophelia, sexual health literacy and learner-centred health literacy.Click here forthe conferenceprogrammeThe day delegate rate for the conference isonly£100 and includes tea, coffee and lunch. The pre-conference event is £10.

To reserve your place at this event, please complete theregistration formand return it by 28th February 2016.

Wednesday 4th May 2016 -Measuring Value: The impact of information literacy and its evaluation – A one day conference Library & Learning Resources at Birmingham City University are delighted to announce our forthcoming conference on information literacy. Venue: Birmingham City University, City Centre Campus, Curzon Building, 4 Cardigan Street, Birmingham, B4 7BD This conference will consider the various ways in which the teaching of information literacy has made a difference particularly in connection with the three conference themes: student progression, supporting research students and enhancing employability. These themes will be explored in three parallel sessions during the day. There will be an optional tour of Curzon Library which opened in August 2015 at the close of the conference. We invite you to join us. For further details and booking information please clickhere ( CLOSING DATE IS WEDNESDAY20th APRIL 2016 (Early booking rate is available).

25 May 2016 –PiF Annual Conference - The Power of Partnership: Working in collaboration to deliver high-quality health and care information and support

at the Royal College of Physicians, London. Partnership working is about developing inclusive, mutually beneficial relationships across a range of sectors that improve the quality of health information and support, and the experience of care for patients and the public. The interactive and participatory style of the conference will include: