Are you considering implementing the Best Patient Care, Clinical Research and You staff guide in your Trust? This page tells you everything you need to know before you start...

Background

The Best Patient Care, Clinical Research and You staff guide was developed in a partnership between the NIHR CRN, the NHS R&D Forum, UKRD and NHS England to provide NHS staff with an easy to use guide that helps individual staff members understand the interdependencies between their role and research in the care environment.

The project team developed a 'mock up' site initially as a proof of concept that the pilot sites could use as a model for their local versions. The site contains both national content, with core messages that can be transferred directly to local sites, and templates for local content that should be adapted by each local site to include Trust specific information. To accompany this, the team later developed a microsite to support the pilot sites in embedding the guide in their local Trusts with guidance on how to ensure it resonates with local staff and in turn maximise visibility.

The Pilot Phase

A national team of enthusiastic R&D colleagues representing a range of Trusts then piloted the guide to assess the opportunities and challenges generated by implementing the guide in their organisations.

The top tips below have been informed by the feedback from the pilot sites:

Before you start

• Assess the work involved before committing to a timescale. Whereas core content for ‘Best Patient Care, Clinical Research and You’ is provided and can save you much time in setting it up on your Trust staff intranet or staff site, it is important to be realistic about timescales depending on other commitments.
• Assess the technicalities of transferring content and its navigation to your local platform which may have more or less flexibility than the guide’s mock up site. Be mindful of user restrictions for your Trust's website or internet platforms.
• Consider which other teams need to be involved in set up, what they could contribute and their priorities and timescales. The pilot sites reported to have worked closely with colleagues in their local Communications Teams, Library Teams and R&D department. Try and discuss how these teams could support you at the planning stage, so you can assess as a team what will be required.
• Consider what level of localisation your Trust will have. What additional or alternative content might be needed? How long might it take to adjust for your own content? Factor in time for sourcing local images, do you have permission to upload local images to your site?
• Consider the positioning of the guide in the Trust. Carefully consider which platform will reach most staff; staff intranet or Trust internet pages? How will it link to other research and care initiatives in your Trust? How will it be launched so it has staff's attention? How can it become an active component in the wider staff awareness/learning journey at your Trust? What other staff functions could it be linked with e.g. HR, Induction, Communications, Workforce development etc?

Setting up

• Map out how the guide content and navigation as a whole will sit on your local online platform. Consider the navigation back as well as forward. The navigation sheet in the set up suite provided for the guide can help you with this. Stratifying the content will also help to ensure relevant information appears at the right time for each individual user. Ensuring the navigation is intuitive is absolutely crucial when setting up a resource for busy staff.
• Use the provided content and layout guidance document for each page, either copy and paste from the content summary on each document or use the mockup site to do the same.
• Localise the look, images and adjust/add written content for local relevance without detracting from the key principles and purpose of the guide. Consider adding additional background pages or links to content/tools/initiatives already available or being planned in your Trust. Remember, the list of staff groups on the mock up site is not definitive, could you carry out a gap analysis to establish what might be missing for your Trust? Consider terminology used by your Trust and how this may be different from the standard guide content provided - what further adjustments do you need to make? Adding case studies written by colleagues in your Trusts help bring the key messages to life. The audience can relate to this anecdotal content, which might inspire them to do something similar...

Time to Launch

• Consider who needs to be involved to help you with the launch. What channels are available in your Trust with which to reach all staff?
• Time your launch for the best effect. Is there a wider event, campaign or anniversary it could be linked with?
• Set up a dissemination plan and checklist.

Business as usual

• Assess the longer term governance for the guide once it is on your Trust's staff platform. How will you ensure the guide can be kept up to date and relevant? Should you set up an ongoing commitment in your team to assess usage and to review the guide annually in the long term for example? Should other teams be involved in this and what would be the time commitment?
• Strive to continuously improve the guide and its positioning in your Trust. Consider adding interesting features from time to time to keep staff attention, including interactive features such as monthly blogs, a discussion board or a newsfeed on research at the Trust and the findings of Trust supported studies.

Interested in setting up the guide in your local organisation?

For further information visit: https://rdforum.nhs.uk/best-patient-care-clinical-research-and-you/