To mark World Patient Safety Day, we thought we'd share one way UHCW Knowledge and Library Services supports patient safety.
Something you may not know about us is that we play an important role in supporting the Trust's complaints process. Moreover, we do this in a very "library" way: by using our search skills!
When the trust receives complaints it's a great chance to refer to the guidelines and policies and reflect on the care provided. But that is easier said than done! We know staff working at UHCW have busy workloads and searching our database of local guidelines (e-library) can be time-consuming. That's where our helpdesk team comes in.
To support our colleagues and make the process a little easier, our Library and Knowledge Specialists carry out evidence searches for relevant local and national policies and guidelines to support those responding to the complaints. Making this information more accessible is just one of the ways in which our search skills can help support patient safety.
In case you're curious about the process, on a typical day we receive anywhere between 1 and 9 complaints that need an evidence search. For every complaint referred to us, we carefully review the details and the questions raised by the Complaints Team. This helps us come up with our search terms. From there, we start by searching for local guidance in the e-library before identifying relevant national policies and resources such as NICE guidance. Depending on the complexity of the complaint this can take anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours. Finally, we compile everything we found into a summary that gets sent to everyone involved in the process.
One interesting insight from this work is the themes that emerge over time. Communication, for example, features regularly in complaints and is fundamental to both patient experience and many of our Trust values. Yet it has highlighted areas where additional local guidance could be useful in the future.
Overall, we find this can be a very interesting part of the job and quite rewarding because of its direct link to patient safety.
Learn more about the World Patient Safety Day campaign here:
https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-patient-safety-day/2026
Want to find out more about how we can support you with our search skills? Get in touch: