The Commissioning Handbook Innovation through

CollaborationAlison Price, Librarian

NHS Lincolnshire

• As Commissioning has gained momentum in the NHS, so has the need for information professionals to gain confidence in identifying and navigating relevant information resources. 

• This presentation describes a collaborative

project which resulted in the wiki Commissioning Handbook.

What is the Commissioning Handbook?

The Wiki Commissioning Handbook is a

dynamic, shared online resource that is

being developed by - and for - the health

library community.

Networking: a tonic for primary care librarians

From Bright Idea to Work in Progress

Nuts, Bolts, WebEx and Wiki

Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration.

The Commissioning Handbook Goes Live

Local leadership

Work in progress

National support

Flexible & Adaptable!

• Goodbye World Class Commissioning!

• Hello Practice Based Commissioning!

The names may change, but the underlying information needs, and the information retreival skills required to meet them, remain. With a little tweeking, the Commissioning Handbook is being updated to support the Commissioning agenda of the new Coalition government.

Background to the HandbookIn 2006-7, the National Library for Health sponsored two workshops on the opportunities for “Bringing knowledge to bear: informing the commissioning process in primary care”.

Recurrent themes emerged -

• How do we know we are delivering ‘best practice’ of our own, as librarians in the commissioning field?

• How should we navigate the resources we have available to us when answering enquiries, providing current awareness and undertaking literature searches?

• How can we be sure we are not missing vital resources?

Pooling Our KnowledgeHow did a small group of geographically dispersed health librarians, withexperience of supporting commissioning, pool their collective knowledge tocreate a dynamic, shared online resource? 

Librarians have been responding individually to the unique information needs oftheir own organisations, developing service approaches to retrievinginformation and building up their own resource lists to answer commissioningenquiries.

In Autumn 2008 a small band of librarians from various NHS regions, all withexperience of supporting Commissioning, were approached to work together onpooling their working knowledge, experience, ideas and ‘favourites’ lists.

The Commissioning Handbook is the result of this work.

Aim

To help information professionals to support NHS staff involved in the commissioning cycle by bringing together information resources and examples of library service best practice.

To support information professionals at all levels of involvement with commissioning, from those entirely new to the subject to those with considerable experience.

To provide an understanding of the information needs of Commissioners – even if they are not always sure of these themselves – by including examples of search requests.

Focus

• There is inevitably overlap in the resources listed in the Handbook and those found on sites such as the NHS Evidence Specialist Collection for Commissioning. Our guiding principle is that the resources in the Handbook should support the role of the information professional in undertaking literature searches and answering enquiries.

• If a resource is judged to support answering enquiries or performing literature searches, it is welcomed into the fold. The element of the Handbook which perhaps most clearly demonstrates this purpose is the inclusion of examples of search strategies used by information professionals to answer real enquiries.

Content

• We have made no attempt to produce a comprehensive listing. The handbook is a simply a working collection of those resources which contributors regard as valuable, both as starting–points and for more in-depth searches.

• The handbook also serves as a repository for documents and presentations produced and used by information professionals in the field, with practical examples of search strategies. Models of library service provision to support commissioners, and examples of best practice from librarians, will be a feature of the site.

• Links to resources are made as ‘deeply’ as possible, so that you are not referred to a large resource only to have to search within it again.

Structure• The Handbook is structured to follow the stages of the stages of the

commissioning cycle, identifying the information needs of those involved in commissioning, and pertinent information sources for each stage.

• Users can either browse the list of chapter headings or read the introduction and link through to the rest of the handbook from either. A search function is also in place.

• The Handbook is designed to support information professionals at all levels of involvement with commissioning, from those entirely new to the subject to those with considerable experience – all of the working group members have discovered at least one thing they weren’t aware of in the process of creating the resource.

• What commissioning involves and the stages of the commissioning cycle;

• Key areas in which those involved in commissioning need and want information; 

• How to locate the best available evidence for commissioners;

• Advice on best practice in providing library services to support commissioners.

Details

• Introductory Comment

• Advice on Searching

• Search Strategies

• Links to Relevant Resources

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/

Whistle-Stop Tour

2. Defining “World Class Commissioning” http://commissioning.pbworks.com/02--Defining-World-Class-Commissioning

3. The roles and information needs of those involved in commissioning

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/03--The-roles-and-information-needs-of-those-involved-in-commissioning

4. Leading the NHS; engaging with partners http://commissioning.pbworks.com/04--Leading-the-NHS%3B-engaging-with-partners

5. The Commissioning cyclehttp://commissioning.pbworks.com/05-0-The-commissioning-cycle

5.1 Assessing needs 5.2 Reviewing services and gap analysis 5.3 Risk management 5.4 Deciding priorities 5.5 Strategic options 5.6 Contract implementation 5.7 Provider development 5.8 Managing provider performance

6. Disinvestment http://commissioning.pbworks.com/06-Disinvestment

7. Benchmarkinghttp://commissioning.pbworks.com/07-0-Benchmarking

7.1 Best practice and innovation

8. Information resources to support commissioning http://commissioning.pbworks.com/08-0-Information-resources-to-support-commissioning

8.1 In priority areas 8.2 For specific populations

8.3 For specific diseases or conditions 8.4 For specific service sectors

11. Legal information

12. Organisations that support commissioners

13.1 Professional development for commissioners

Searching

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/

Librarians’ Best Practice9. Searching for information for commissioning

9.1 Tips on searching the web9.2 Examples of search strategies

Requests for information with a commissioning angle - ‘what has been done elsewhere?’, ‘how do I develop a Service Level Agreement in xyz’ – present rather woollier searching options than the MESH and PICO approach to more traditional evidence based clinical requests.

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/09-1--Tips-on-searching-the-web

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/Search-on-sexual-health-services-for-people-with-learning-disabilities

10. Information services for commissioning

10.1 Managing libraries, knowledge and data

10.2 Information supply; collaboration or competition

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/10-2--Information-supply%3A-collaboration-or-competition

13.2 Professional development for librarianshttp://commissioning.pbworks.com/13-2--Professional-development-for-librarians

The Handbook work is now ready to be

explored and promoted.

Accessing the wiki is simple and requires no

registration or logging in – just head to the

homepage and explore!

Future Development

The Handbook is a ‘work in progress’. As the commissioning agenda evolves, so will the Commissioning Handbook. The Handbook reflects the availability of resources in specific subject areas. Some of the pages arebursting with links and information, others are rather sparse. With time we hope to see them filled with resources and experience.

Resources have not yet been identified for this section.  Can you make a recommendation?

http://commissioning.pbworks.com/08-1-Commissioning-in-priority-areas

No matter how experienced, or how new, we are to supporting commissioning, there will always be someone who finds a new resource, develops a new searching strategy, or has best practice to share.

Share what you know!

Building the Handbook

Search Strategy Examples

• http://commissioning.pbworks.com/Search-strategy

Who Are We?