The Workforce Deanery of NHS West Midlands (NHSWM) commissions a wide and varied range of educational provision from educational providers each year, including the provision of
NHS Library Services.
The
Library Quality Assurance Framework (LQAF) is a process which is developed to ensure that the NHS Library Services are
reviewed, quality assured, compliant to national standards, and meeting the needs of the West Midlands health economy. LQAF is defined in the Learning and Development Agreements (LDAs) as the quality assurance framework for all library services in the NHS West Midlands region.
The LQAF process is important for several reasons:
- It highlights areas of concern with the quality of library services and allows open and transparent interventions to be put in place in partnership to ensure that all NHS Library Services are working towards agreed national standards and providing value for money services.
- It allows for the formal identification of areas where library services can be enhanced beyond currently accepted standards.
- It allows for the identification of areas of exemplary practice and innovation, and acts as a mechanism to capture and share this good practice.
LQAF builds upon the quality assurance tools that have been used to assess the quality of NHS library/knowledge services previously. These include the two Health Libraries and Information Confederation - HELICON accreditation schemes and the 2008 The National Service Framework for Quality Improvement of NHS funding Library Services in England (NSF). LQAF was created by the former National Library for Health and was endorsed by
"Report of a National Review of NHS Health Library Services in England: From Knowledge to Health in the 21st Century," which was commissioned by the Department of Health and led by Professor Peter Hill.
LQAF standards and guidance are available on
SHALL.