Abstract
The Health and Social Care Act 2022 includes a requirement for the NHS to use research evidence in decision making. Understanding how to critically appraise research, including sense checking evidence and reviewing research findings, ensures the NHS workforce makes the best-informed decisions for patients and the wider health system. Critical appraisal skills are essential tools for all healthcare professionals and are invaluable at every step of research evaluation.
Many NHS knowledge and library specialists (KLS) in England deliver training in critical appraisal skills and developing their skills in this area is crucial. As critical appraisal skills can be used less frequently than other information searching skills, KLS often require refresher training. Waiting for the next round of critical appraisal skills training courses is problematic, and there is a cost to providing repeated sessions.
Health Education England’s solution to this challenge was the development of an e-learning package, available to both NHS KLS and the wider health and care workforce via NHS eLearning. Commissioned by the CILIP accredited NHS Knowledge for Healthcare Learning Academy the package was developed by learning technologists working closely with subject matter experts Michele Maden, John Blenkinsopp, and Ramona Naicker.
The openly available Critically Appraising the Evidence Base eLearning programme aims to guide all health and care staff and learners in using appropriate appraisal skills and techniques when reviewing evidence. The programme consists of 8 modules including a module on equity considerations in critical appraisal which is, to the best of our knowledge, the first training offer of this kind to be made available.
This session will focus on sharing project drivers, learning acquired from working in partnership to deliver and promote the modules, evaluation of the programme and plans to develop further eLearning packages.
References
Hill, A. and Spittlehouse, C. (2009) ‘What is Critical Appraisal’, Bandolier, p.1 Available at: http://www.bandolier.org.uk/painres/download/whatis/What_is_critical_appraisal.pdf (Accessed 09 November 2022)
Health and Social Care Act 2022, Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/31/contents/enacted (Accessed 09 November 2022)
