On the 1st April 2023, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will merge to become a single Trust - co-delivering mental and physical health services for the people of Somerset.
As a result of the merger, the library services at Musgrove Park Hospital and Yeovil District Hospital will also merge - becoming a single service & team providing a multi-site Knowledge & Library Service. We have worked together in close partnership for many years, so it is a pleasure to officially combine our teams!
Our new chapter is not without some sadness as we bid farewell to some of our team members - Angie Drayton (YDH Library Manager) has retired after 20 years of service at Yeovil and will be very much missed, and Jessica Pawley (Knowledge & Evidence Specialist) has become a fully embedded member of the Improvement Team (although she will still work very closely with us!). We wish them all the very best as they also begin their new chapters!
You can meet the members of our newly merged team here: Meet the team 
We have been working on combing our systems and processes and from Monday 3rd April
we will have:
There won't be any need to change or update your NHS OpenAthens accounts, this will update automatically behind the scenes, and for new registrations you will be able to search under 'Somerset' or 'Yeovil' to be matched to the new organisation. New library members will be able to self-register to join the Library - if Yeovil is your closest library which you will be using the most, then select Yeovil as the organisation. You will continue to find both of our book collections on the SWIMS Library Catalogue, and can request them via the usual channels.
We will be keeping both existing library spaces at Musgrove Park Hospital and Yeovil District Hospital - you can find details of locations, services and opening hours here: About our libraries - Somerset FT Libraries at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust. With Angie retiring and Katy enjoying her maternity leave, we are currently a little short staffed at our Yeovil site, so staffed hours may vary, or the library may be unstaffed at short notice - please bear with us while we recruit to our team, we will keep you updated on opening hours via Twitter.
You may have noticed the subtle change in our service name, to Knowledge & Library Services. This aligns us with the Knowledge for Healthcare Framework terminology and is recognition of our evolving profession and extension of what you might think of as our traditional "library" services. Our physical library spaces and resources remain at the very heart of our service and provide a safe haven of learning, research and study for our staff. The "knowledge" element of our service is growing at pace as we live in an increasingly digital world. We can provide access to high quality health information and resources 24/7, we can send you customised, automised e-mail bulletins of the latest evidence in your areas, we can help you by finding the best evidence to inform your patient care, research and learning, giving your the Gift of Time, and we can help you connect with knowledge, colleagues and best practice through knowledge mobilisation. We know that you will continue to think of us as "The Library" and that is very much OK with us - we don't mind what you call us as long as you know that we are here for you, and passionately dedicated to supporting your learning, research and patient care.
We look forward to starting this next chapter with you, please do not hesitate to get in touch if we can be of assistance to you.
Cate & the Knowledge & Library Services team
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