Turning a challenge into an opportunity: health literacy training for NHS knowledge and library staff #LILAC22

This is another liveblog post from Sheila, from the LILAC conference - Turning a challenge into an opportunity: health literacy training for NHS knowledge and library staff presented by Joanne Naughton and Sue Robertson (Health Education England). To make change you need to be embedded in strategy, and for HEE this is identifiied in the strategic report Knowledge for Healthcare - about "using the right knowledge and evidence, at the right time, in the right place" with the ultimate outcomes of excellent healthcare and health improvement. A key part of this is addressing inequality - including helping everyone to get access to high quality health information. This was always a goal, but the pandemic brings it into particular focus. 

The speakers outlined the strategy for developing knowledge and library specialists - skills development and access to resources, resulting in the impacts of shared decision making, skills for engagement with the public and tools for tackling inequalities. This is carried out in partnership with other professional colleagues in the health service. They talked about some of the approaches and tools they used: and delivery ranging from the starter 15 minute Health Literacy Awareness session through to a 3 hour Train the trainer session. In the "train the trainer" session there is a big emphasis on ideas for delivery and giving the trainers practice. 

Before the pandemic, these sessions had a strong face to face element, but obviously they had to switch for the pandemic. They were in any case launching a new set of training sessions, which included virtual options, and the pandemic meant they had to go over to online entirely. They played to their own particular strengths (e.g. to start with the librarian with most technical experience led on that side, whilst others developed their technical expertise). They had to be adaptable, as the learners had different circumstances and equipment: they discovered that there wasn't a one-size-fits all solution, you have to adapt to the specific learners. 

Issues included: technology barriers (e.g. people who could only join by phone, which limited participation); Human issues (e.g. coping with people arriving at breakout sessions late; building trust); How (whether) people value virtual training (e.g. people who cancel more easily); Maintaining (and improving) the quality of training. As regards trust issues, they have ground rules (e.g. about confidentiality); they encourage camera-on; they role play/give examples for more complex activities to give learners confidence. They have had strong demand for the online training. They also mentioned their community of practice and that they have joined a National Health and Digital Literacy partnership, this includes a partnership to upskill the public in different parts of the country. 

At the end they identified a tool http://healthliteracy.geodata.uk/ Health literacy in England - where you can focus in on results for a particular part of England (the screenshot is from that resource).