Are we all agreed?
The December SHINE study day took place at the Southern General Hospital and was organised, very successfully, by Charlotte Boulnois. The purpose of the study day was to investigate the opportunities afforded by developing service level agreements and negotiating partnerships with other user groups connected to our medical libraries. Another purpose of the study day, and one which I found especially useful as a newcomer to hospital library services, was to bring SHINE members together and give everyone a chance to meet colleagues and put faces to names. As many medical libraries are often staffed by only one or two staff, this coming together in a relatively informal setting allows sometimes isolated library staff to catch up with what's going on in Scottish health libraries.
The day started off with a leisurely cup of coffee and the opportunity for introductions and the chance to catch up on the gossip. We then moved through into the lecture theatre, part of the Walton Conference Centre, for a very entertaining talk by June Livingstone, a training officer from the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow on negotiation skills. She talked about the basic steps that accompany any form of negotiation: getting to know each other, setting goals and objectives, beginning the negotiation, expressing disagreement, reassessment and compromise and then, finally, reaching agreement and used real life examples to illustrate her points.
The talk then moved on to a discussion about different types of questions that can be used. She explained how using open questions followed by probing questions then reflective questions and finally closed questions will lead to a problem (or a query) being understood by both parties involved. The talk concluded with an entertaining look at how body language can effect negotiations and give each side clues to how the other side are responding to your suggestions. Tips offered included reading the other person rubbing their nose as a sign that they are suspicious of you and stroking their chin as they are analysing what you are saying. The importance of listening in a negotiation was highlighted and suggestions to improve our listening skills were offered.
The second presentation was made by Mike Carmel, the Director of the South Thames Library and Information Service and he explained how new developments in the NHS affect medical libraries and how many key issues such as clinical governance, co-operative networks and clinical effectiveness must be addressed by health librarians. He then went on to describe how drawing up contracts and service level agreements with libraries in linked organisations, such as universities and other NHS Trusts, are essential to develop successful library services. Libraries must develop business plans and be aware of Trust strategies and be prepared to monitor their own performance. He concluded by stressing the importance of forming partnerships as a means of sharing resources and identified the need for a sound IT strategy in NHS Trusts to be developed as a priority and one which librarians should be involved in.
After a pleasant three-course lunch, the delegates split into two groups to attend workshop sessions within which service level agreements in two different contexts were discussed. The session which I attended was asked to debate how we would develop a document to initiate negotiations between a university library and a hospital Trust with the aim of gaining some sort of funding from the university since the hospital library was becoming increasingly well-used by students. The discussion started off with a general look at why a service level agreement was needed, the evidence (statistics) necessary to convince the university that an agreement was a reasonable request and how to go about gaining allies to support your proposal.
The discussion moved on to the need for library services to approach such negotiations with a business-like approach and to prepare a business plan and look at the situation from the point-of-view of an accountant. The workshop session was very valuable and offered up insights into how other SHINE members were dealing with some of the issues brought up in the morning sessions, such as clinical governance, and gave everyone an opportunity to express both their hopes and concerns for the future.
The final presentation was given by Louis Golightley and Allan Woods, Health Service Liaison Managers at the University of Edinburgh who offered a description of how the Edinburgh University Library Service has approached the provision of library services to NHS Trust members. The Library aims to provide services to registered Trust members that include the use of collections and online services, interlibrary loan services, user education and photocopying facilities. These services are charged for and Trusts sign a contract that reflects the number of library users from a particular Trust but allows Trust staff access to a wide range of quality library services. This was an interesting talk that gave an insight into how a University views forming partnerships with NHS Trusts.
After a short discussion period, the study day drew to a close and the general opinion seemed to be that it had been a very successful day. I felt that I had learnt a huge amount, both from the speakers and from my colleagues, and felt motivated and inspired to investigate further the opportunities presented by service level agreements. I really enjoyed meeting the other SHINE members, especially those I had talked to on the phone previously and felt the day was a good mix of formal teaching sessions and chances to get to know one another a little better. I am very much looking forward to the next study day and the chance to meet more of the SHINE librarians and hope I will get as much out of the day as I did this one.
Shona McQuistan
Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow