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Dr Jonty Heaversedge: M name is Jonty Heaversedge and I'm a GP I'm the chair of NHS Southward CCG and I'm also the Medical Director for Primary Care and Digital Transformation in London.

I guess from my point of view as a chair of a commissioning organization, it's incredibly important that we use best evidence to inform the decisions that we make. If I'm honest, in Southwark I'm not sure that we've always done that, and I'm not sure we've always understood what it is that library services have to offer. So I think one of the opportunities we need to recognize is that it's a particular in a time of significant financial constraint it's more important than ever that the decisions we make are based on very best evidence that there is at the moment.

I think far too many of our decisions are based on anecdotes or assumption and one of the reasons for that is that I'm not sure I've ever felt I have access to the capacity, capability and expertise that I need to form those decisions with best evidence in understanding what library services have to offer.

I've come to realise actually we do have access to that opportunity and it's really important that we increase awareness of the services that are there to support us make best decisions particularly as we go forward because of course we're moving into an era of integrated cases, and at the heart of those integrated care systems it's going to be quality improvements. Really QI is the engine room of integrated care systems and it's essential that that quality improvement again is informed by the best evidence that we have to inform the decisions that we need to make to improve outcomes for populations. Library services are going to be an absolutely key component of that quality improvement process and it's incredibly important again that as we think about the future we understand the roles of library services have to play in that.

So I would very much encourage people to find out more about what library services have to offer and then to think about how it could play an important role in the work that you do in the NHS.

In historical times, the secret of literacy was jealousy guarded because knowledge is power.

By the time the NHS came along literacy was widespread there was still an imbalance of power between the people with medical knowledge and their patients

Now, the world has been historically transformed!

The Internet has freed access to knowledge and enabled the easy exchange of information

For the health service this has meant greater transparency and a more equitable partnership with the public. But, the free flow of information has also  made healthcare decision-making harder.

There's so much information we can't make good use of it. What we need is someone to make sense of it all.

Call for the NHS Librarians and Knowledge Specialists! 

Our service filters the information from reports and studies and journals and the internet plus the information that's right under our noses.

The knowledge that's locked up inside people's heads and we convert this into knowledge that powers change.

We help teams to use knowledge more effectively  using best practice and sharing know- how.

All this saves time and money.

More importantly, it improves healthcare outcomes 

Health Librarians and Knowledge Specialists: bringing you the power for change