1) The document discusses Knowledge@lerts, a weekly email bulletin service that aims to signpost commissioners to relevant evidence and resources. 2) It provides recommendations for the bulletin, such as highlighting local content, including full URLs, and keeping items short. 3) Feedback from recipients was generally positive, with most readers finding items of interest and clicking through to resources, though response rate was low.

1. Knowledge@lerts for
commissioners
Anne Gray, Knowledge Officer
Milton Keynes PCT /CCG
TFPL Health SIG, 21 June 2012

2. Don’t reinvent the CAS
Timely evidence
Mapping exercise:
•What do people need to
know?
•What alerting services already
exist?
•What are the gaps?
Supporting commissioners
Good practice behind service
development
more recently …
Health and Social Care Bill
/Act ie CCG development , CSU
development and the new
healthcare landscape

3. Knowledge@lerts
• Signpost, don’t duplicate existing alerting
services
• Highlight resources which could be missed
• Short and to the point – must be quick and easy
to write and read
• Bring out local content/aspects
• Weekly to keep short – never more than 2 sides
of A4
Also
• PR exercise for NHS librarians
• Good way to keep up with developments

4. Knowledge@lerts
Inline email
All MK CCG staff and GPs
and lots of others
Items short & easy to scan
Full URLs
A short archive on the
Quality MK website

5. Feedback survey
• Very poor response (7%) from 233 recipients
• Out of 17
– 10 always/usually read same day
– 15 always/usually scanned to the end
– 14 always/usually found items of interest
– 8 always/usually clicked through to item(s)
– 8 always/usually stored for future use

6. Feedback…
• “contributes to my thinking about key issues”
• “Provides me with information on how things
are done elsewhere which accelerates
learning and avoids duplication”
• “they have helped my/developed my thinking
… or I would not give them the time”
• “This is really excellent stuff. This is my day
job and I have learnt a lot from your bulletin”

7. Respond to user need
• Knowledge@lerts for CCGs
– CCG authorisation and development material - Jan
2012 onwards
• Commissioning Support Units/Services
– Ad hoc email bulletin sent to small (but locally
influential) group

8. Issues
• Keeping up to date with other CASs
• Keeping up to date with user needs
• Time to identify relevant items, scan and
compile bulletins
• Retrieving material from previous bulletins
• Getting feedback