Knowledge Mobilisation and Joint Working

This is the third and final post in a series describing the lessons learned from a sharing good knowledge mobilisation practice session held on the 23rd November. The final theme explores knowledge mobilisation and joint working.

Embedding a knowledge mobilisation session into Trust leadership programmes 

At Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sarah Stones described how she teamed-up with organisers of Trust leadership development programmes to share an overview of the Knowledge Mobilisation Framework within the programmes.  In the leadership session Sarah gave a presentation about the  Knowledge Mobilisation Framework, followed by 3 short 10-minute espresso café discussions prompted by the knowledge mobilisation postcards.  This initial development took place in person but following the COVID-19 pandemic was switched to MS Teams and extended out to the more senior leadership development programme.   

The sessions provided a good opportunity to raise the profile of the library and knowledge service and knowledge mobilisation more generally. Learning from the sessions included: 

• To have more impact it would be easier to share just two or three of the knowledge mobilisation tools rather than trying to cover off all of the tools in the framework. 

• Knowledge harvesting was particularly popular as were tools to help share knowledge during and after projects as this is often not done well. 

• To aid understanding and relevance participants needed to understand how the tools could help with their own work – this often involved using less jargon.  

• Discussion of the tools led to some useful conversations and follow-up work.

• A shorter, more interactive presentation with more time for discussion is more effective. 

Joining forces to support GOLD Command in Leeds during the COVID-19 pandemic 

Helen Swales, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust  and Jenny Emmel, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust shared how they worked together to support GOLD command in Leeds during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In April 2020 Leeds Community Healthcare library team were asked to support the weekly Health and Social Care Intelligence reports.  Due to the time required to compile these the Leeds Community Team reached out to the Teaching Hospitals team for help. Over time the weekly briefings were produced on a fortnightly basis. It was very time consuming for library staff to produce these but there were real benefits to working in partnership rather than as a single library service in doing this vital work. 

You can read more about this work in the LKS North Blog 

Library and Knowledge Services and Sustainable Healthcare 

Pippa Orr shared her work with the Sustainable Healthcare group at Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear.  Below are the results from Pippa in an After Action Review format. 

What was supposed to happen? 

• I joined the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) in 2019, when climate emergencies began to be declared and we started to see more in the media about climate change and its impacts. 

• And I wanted to raise awareness of climate change across the Trust. 

What actually happened? 

I produced the monthly Health Management Current Awareness Bulletin. The distribution list included most of the senior management roles within the Trust and I saw this as an opportunity to reach them directly. So, we added a Sustainable Healthcare heading and started to include items relating to the links between climate change and mental health. This led to 

• Invitation to join the CNTWClimateHealth Steering Group. My manager agreed it as an appraisal objective. 

• Topic Review evidence search on green care and theming of results, using Endnote (we triage evidence search requests, offering basic, comprehensive or topic review). 

• “I think a topic review please. Green care is a fundamental part of our task and thorough baseline review would be a very helpful start.” Consultant Psychiatrist, April 2020. 

• “It’s fantastic work! The RCPsych were really interested and would like us to share it with them. It will certainly go into our Models of Care strategy document… It will also be very helpful in proposing new services and supporting the maintenance of existing ones.” Consultant Psychiatrist, April 2020. 

• Contributed knowhow to Climate Health Group conversations and growing the network. 

• Further evidence searches, e.g., recycling PPE, review of Transport and E-Vehicle Policy. 

• Document summaries. 

• Registering Steering Group members onto KnowledgeShare. 

• Whole LKS Team involved, e.g., books (both purchased and loaned), recycling, signposting, joined CNTWClimateHealth Lunchtime Conversations on 7 different themes, supporting the Green Plan 2021. 

• I talk about the CNTWClimateHealth Group when presenting to Team meetings and during Randomised Coffee Conversations. 

• I collate Schwartz Round resource lists, including for a planned event looking at climate anxiety. 

Why was there a difference? 

I thought of creating a separate Bulletin on sustainable healthcare but that risked attracting people who were already aware of climate change issues, and we need more people to engage, as it was and still is a climate emergency. 

What can we learn from this? 

• Get involved at the beginning, for searching. 

• Start small and see where it goes. 

• Just do it. 

• Be flexible and open minded.  

• Be proactive. 

• Invite yourself to meetings. 

• Be part of the conversation. 

• Not enough hours in the day. 

• Make every contact count! 

• The climate emergency continues. 

In the following discussion participants were reminded of the Sustainability Community of Practice as a workspace to share ideas and tips on sustainability.  

Everyone was inspired by Pippa’s final words and the need to “Just Do It” applied to all the speakers sharing their good knowledge mobilisation practice ideas and tips. 

Thank you to all speakers for sharing their learning and to Liz Jordan and Jess Pawley for organising the session. 

You can view all of the slides shared in the session.