By Kath Williams CASH Service Officer CASH: Current Awareness Service for Health

Contents 1. Service Overview Background information Service model Quality and development Service features 2. Becoming a Contributor How it works Benefits How to get involved

Service Overview

CASH timeline 2001: Project to investigate a current awareness service for the 11 health authorities in the Trent Region 2003: Proposal to SHA for a web based service 2004: The Primary Care Current Awareness Service (PCCAS) goes live on The Improvement Network (TIN) 2005: National current awareness service proposed 2006: RSS Directory launched on NLH 2008: Successful bid to NLH for a national current awareness service 2009: A challenging year for CASH 2010: CASH gains the support of SHALL

Central database health librarians acting as contributors

Utilising the strengths of contributors Knowledge of user requirements Involved in building the service Not “one size fits all” Promote the service to the end user

Quality and development Management Board Representative from each sector Bimonthly meetings Service Officer First line support Quality monitoring Publicity and promotional materials Enhancements to service infrastructure

Des Conway (Chair of Board) Head of Knowledge Resources at NHS Nottingham City Alison Sherratt (Contributors) Resource Centre Manager at NHS Nottinghamshire County Angela Clifford (Mental Health) Knowledge Services Manager at the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Heather Gardner (Secondary Care) Library Manager, King's Mill Hospital (Sutton-in-Ashfield) David Brunt (Technical Support) Knowledge Systems Manager at Derbyshire County PCT Jill Rutt (Daily Health Bulletin) Library Services Manager at NHS Sheffield Richard Marriott (Regional Libraries) Education Infrastructure Advisor for the East Midlands Healthcare Workforce Deanery

Service features Hosted on The Improvement Network (TIN) Website:

Fully searchable online database:

Browse by category 30+ Categories Management topics Conditions e.g. Chronic fatigue Patient Groups e.g. Later Life Sector – Primary Care, Secondary Care & Mental Health

RSS newsfeeds:

What’s included? Grey literature Management information Reports & statistics Journal articles Parliamentary information

Current awareness bulletins:

Becoming a Contributor

How it works Contributors enter up to 15 items into the database per month for their chosen category – this takes approximately 2-3 hours, including: Scouring sources for relevant items of information for your chosen category and sector Entering them into the database Entries should be made as quickly as possible to ensure currency is maintained

Memorandum of understanding The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlines the roles and responsibilities of both contributors and the CASH team Each contributor is asked to sign a copy Available to download from TIN

Support materials and mechanisms 1. Service Officer 2. Support materials: Welcome Pack Toolkit FAQs 3. CASH Forum

Benefits of CASH Central infrastructure The CASH database and RSS newsfeeds provide an established mechanism for the delivery of current awareness services. Sharing of information By entering items into a central and fully searchable online database, the information can be shared and re-used as a supplement to local current awareness initiatives. Current awareness tools Access to Zinepal ( which uses the content of RSS newsfeeds and blogs to create PDF bulletins. Content can be pulled from multiple sources, and the individual bulletins edited and reformatted as required. Support network A major benefit of collaborative working is the sharing of knowledge and expertise.

How to get involved Choose a category the Service Officer to arrange an initial chat Opportunity to ask questions Database training session TIN login details Post or fax a signed copy of the MoU