OpenAthens
An OpenAthens account gives all NHS staff and learners access to a wide range of online resources.
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Improve your skills in finding and using healthcare literature.
Our training courses support healthcare staff in Leeds to search online information resources effectively, critically appraise healthcare literature, and improve awareness of the health literacy needs amongst our patients. We offer a schedule of group courses delivered via MS Teams throughout the year.
Our group courses:
BMJ Best Practice Training
Helping clinicians to follow best practice, improve patient outcomes and reduce quality variation.
What does this course cover?
Whistle stop tour of how BMJ Best Practice can support your clinical practice and CPD.
Who is this course for?
Any member of NHS staff wanting to support their clinical practice and support their CPD with up to date information.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more?
If you need additional support to you getting started with BMJ Best Practice, please visit the training page on the BMJ website to book onto their 30 minute webinars, watch a recording of one of their training sessions or/and view training slides.
Easy access to journals and eBooks
What does this course cover?
This informal course helps you to identify which information resources will best suit your needs, and shows you the easiest ways to access them. The course will take you through registering or updating an NHS OpenAthens account, accessing resources through the Leeds Libraries for Health website, and finding e-books and other electronic resources. It will also briefly introduce the Knowledge and Library Hub, Browzine, and the LibKey tools, helping you to access journals and articles quickly and easily wherever you are.
Who is this course for?
Any member of NHS staff who wants to find out how to easily find and access a wide range of information and evidence online. This course is for staff from any area of professional practice, working at any level, who want to make the most of the online evidence resources provided for them.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more about accessing to ejournals and eBooks?
NHS England have produced a short video on how to register for an NHS Open Athens account in order to access ejournals and ebooks.
Our Find Evidence page introduces the different ways of finding and accessing online resources for NHS staff. You can also find out more about NHS OpenAthens, and manage your account easily online. Browse our A-Z of evidence to discover more of what's available to you, and explore our Topic Guides to find information resources selected to support your role or professional interests.
Contact your library service with any further queries.
Introduction to the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub
A 45 minute webinar introducing the new NHS Knowledge and Library Hub, packed with tips to get the most out of the Hub's content.
What does this course cover?
The NHS Knowledge and LIbrary Hub integrates open-access, freely available online content with NHS nationally and locally purchased resources, incorporating one-click full-text access.
It's a great place to start your search for reliable health information, and this short, informal course supports you to use the Hub effectively. The course will also highlight some of the other key tools available to help all NHS staff to acccess evidence and information effectively, including LibKey and BrowZine.
Who is this course for?
Any member of NHS staff who wants to learn more about this simple way to search and access a huge range of healthcare information resources. No experience of literature searching is necessary, but this course will benefit even experienced literature searchers by introducing them to this simple search tool specifically for the NHS.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more about the Knowledge and Library Hub?
NHS England have produced a Basic User Guide, a 2 minute video introduction and a 5 minute video guide to the NHS Knowledge and LIbrary Hub. For more information about the functions and purpose of the Knowledge Hub, browse the FAQs.
Module 7 of the elearning course How to Search the Literature Effectively looks at how to get the best out of the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub
Searching Skills
A 90 minute, interactive course introducing principles and techniques for planning and carrying out an effective in-depth, reproducible search of healthcare literature.
What does this course cover?
In this course you will learn how to develop and use a strategy for your literature search, and discover techniques that can make your search more effective across different databases. This course will look at defining your search question, how to identify the key concepts within a question and the relevant alternative terms, different principles and techniques for searching free text and thesaurus terms, and how to combine your search terms using Boolean logic. A range of different databases that may be appropriate for your search will be introduced, and resources will be signposted to guide you in using these different search tools. Further support with using specific search tools and systems will be offered following the course.
Who is this course for?
Any member of NHS staff wanting to carry out in-depth, reproducible searches of published healthcare literature.
This course is suitable for those who are completely new to searching healthcare databases, as well as those who want to refresh knowledge and experience not used since university! For staff who are already confident in planning search strategies and using a range of search techniques, but would like support in using a specific database or tool, a 1-1 appointment may be more suitable.
This course is particularly useful for staff undertaking academic study and wanting to learn how to carry out effective literature searches for assignments. It can also support staff involved in research or service development to be able to create effective search strategies to prove that their projects are underpinned by evidence. For those wishing to learn more about how to find and access healthcare information in a less formal way, our sessions 'Introduction to the NHS Knowledge and LIbrary Hub' and 'Getting the best out of OpenAthens' may be more appropriate.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more about Searching Skills?
For more resources on how to plan and carry out effective literature searches, see our information skills guide.
A self directed elearning course covering similar topics to the Searching Skills course has been produced by NHS England. How to Search the Literature Effectively: A step-by-step guide to finding information and developing the skills for successful searching is available via the eLearning for Healthcare Hub.
These modules are designed to help the healthcare workforce (clinical and non-clinical) build confidence to search published literature for articles and evidence relevant to their work, study and research. The modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate. There are seven modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge.
Contact us for any further support.
Critical Appraisal – a Beginner’s Guide
Supporting the need to use the best evidence in decision making, research, and study, this 2 hour critical appraisal course equips candidates with the basic theory and tools required to understand why and how to appraise a research paper.
What does this course cover?
This session will support you to recognise the importance and value of critically evaluating evidence, and understand the value of a focussed research question in the appraisal process. It supports participants to understand the structure and limitations of the published journal article format and identify the key elements within a journal article. The session will include practical experience of using the CASP appraisal tools to evaluate journal articles.
Who is this course for?
Anyone wishing to develop basic practical skills in evaluating and appraising published research. You may be completely new to critical appraisal, or it could be a refresher from previous study. This course is useful to support those undertaking formal academic study, but also for any NHS staff who want to improve their confidence and ability in evidence based practice, in any professional field.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more about Critical Appraisal?
For more resources to support Critical Appraisal, see our information skills guide.
A self directed elearning course covering similar topics to the Critical Appraisal course has been produced by NHS England. Critically Appraising the Evidence Base: Enabling the healthcare workforce to build skills and confidence is available via the eLearning for Healthcare Hub.
This programme aims to support NHS colleagues with understanding the different methods and tools to carry out critical appraisal of research, through 8 bite-sized modules. The sessions are short, with each topic taking approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Contact us for any further support.
Health Literacy Awareness
Our one hour health literacy awareness session highlights some of the barriers that affect people’s understanding and use of health information. It also provides tools and resources for healthcare professionals to support patients to make more informed decisions about their healthcare.
What does this course cover?
Nearly half the adults in England struggle to read and understand health information. When that information includes word and numbers, that figure rises even higher.
The session will explore the impact of low levels of health literacy and also signpost to helpful resources to enable staff to learn easy to use techniques to improve communication, supporting the understanding of the people they treat and care for.
It will also offer the opportunity to share experiences around health literacy with colleagues from across the city.
Who is this course for?
Anyone who wants to improve their awareness of the impacts of health literacy and how to find tools and techniques to address this. The course is open to staff working in any area of healthcare in Leeds, at any level.
How to book this course:
Browse available dates for this course and make a booking through our training calendar. All courses will be delivered online via MS Teams.
If you would like to have this course delivered on a specific date for your department or team, contact us to discuss options.
Can't make the course but want to learn more about Health Literacy?
This 30-minute NHS e-learning session delivered via e-LfH will teach you why health literacy is important and how to use some simple techniques including TeachBack, chunk and check, using pictures and simple language to improve how you communicate and check understanding with others.
Find more resources through our guide to Health Literacy.
Contact us for any further support.
e-Learning
If self directed learning might be a better choice for you, or if you want to start developing your information skills before attanding one of our courses, a range of elearning courses are now available. These are centrally provided by NHS England.
All of these courses can be accessed through the eLearning for Healthcare Hub. Register and log in to access these programmes on the elfh Hub. If you already have an account with elfh, then you can enrol on to these courses by logging in to the elfh Hub, selecting My Account > Enrolment and selecting the programme. You can then access the programme immediately in the My elearning section.
- How to Search the Literature Effectively: A step-by-step guide to finding information and developing the skills for successful searching
- These modules are designed to help the healthcare workforce (clinical and non-clinical) build confidence to search published literature for articles and evidence relevant to their work, study and research. The modules are short (each taking no more than 20 minutes to complete) and may be ‘dipped into’ for reference, or completed to obtain a certificate. There are seven modules suitable for novice searchers and those wishing to refresh their knowledge.
- Module 7 looks at how to get the best out of the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub
- Critically Appraising the Evidence Base: Enabling the healthcare workforce to build skills and confidence
The critical appraisal programme has been designed to enable the healthcare workforce (clinical and non-clinical) to build confidence in the critical appraisal process when applying and evaluating research.
This programme aims to support NHS colleagues with understanding the different methods and tools to carry out critical appraisal of research, through 8 bite-sized modules. The sessions are short, with each topic taking approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Health literacy: You can make a difference
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and NHS England have collaborated to develop a new elearning module to help you understand the role health literacy plays in making sure everyone has enough knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to use health information, to be active partners in their care, and to navigate health and social care systems.
The elearning session takes about 30 minutes to complete. At the end of the session, you will know why health literacy is important and how to use some simple techniques including TeachBack, chunk and check, using pictures and simple language to improve how you communicate and check understanding with others. After each section you can complete an action plan of how you intend to use the techniques in your practice. You can use this plan as evidence of your learning in your appraisal or professional portfolio.
We can also offer tailored training on these skills for your department or team. Contact us to discuss.
If your training needs are more specific, you can book a one-to-one course.
You can also find resources to help you develop your search and appraisal skills in our Information Skills Guide, or contact us with specific queries.
Training calendar
