1. Hull York Medical School:
a changing partnership between
academic and NHS libraries
Catriona Kemp
catriona.kemp@hyms.ac.uk

2. HYMS
is a joint medical school set up in 2003 shared
between the Universities of Hull and York, 3
acute NHS Trusts and 3 mental health Trust
partners.
has placements at 107 GP surgeries.
Image from: https://www.hyms.ac.uk/about/our-partners

3. Shared between Hull, York and the NHS,
HYMS:
● does not a separate legal entity
● has a joint senate
● has its IT managed by York but done so in
consultation with Hull & NHS IT
● has its own network
● has its own eLearning Team
● uses Blackboard (as an add on to the core York
subscription to Blackboard)
● does not have a separate physical library from
that of the main university and NHS libraries

4. There is no such thing as the standard HYMS member of staff…
● Staff can be Hull, York or NHS based and
have a Hull, York or NHS contract
accordingly
● Most Hull and York academic staff are
traditionally associated with another
academic department for Research
purposes
● Staff numbers exceed 2000, with a high
proportion clinical practitioners in the
NHS with little contact with HYMS
beyond students on wards

5. And the universities themselves?

6. University of Hull
Blacklight
Talis
Hydra
Libguides 2011
Central purchase formula
Central budget
Add-on faculty contacts role
University of York
Alma
Leganto
Pure
Libguides 2012
Departmental purchase formulas for books
Departmental book budgets
Academic Liaison Librarians

7. Partnership via a Service Level Agreement
until 2017/18:
• with ring fenced budget and university library staff
directly associated with the medical school
• gave autonomy and creativity
• allowed us to cherry pick the best; less red tape in
the middle
• had successes: brilliant feedback, involvement,
teaching awards
• gave University library ‘parents’ gained a ‘mentoring
programme’

8. and how did this work for
our NHS partners?
● we did not manage NHS services
● NHS Library colleagues however were keen to
work with us for their own accreditation points
● Library colleagues inputted into a formal
feedback exercise for year 3 CAT assignments

9. But
• it became harder to keep capacities of scale
and reach our potential
• was staff intensive
• it was hard to get properly considered by
parent libraries
• both university libraries were changing their
structures (we never really fitted in to Hull)
• our budget was becoming smaller in real
terms;
• and finally, and most, importantly, it didn’t
look good on the accountants’ spreadsheets
of financial return from the Medical School
to the universities..

10. and now?
From 2017/18 HYMS has ‘handed over’ library services and funds
and we have moved to an MoU between the library partners.
This has meant:
• What was once a HYMS problem is now a shared problem: a
real drive by university library partners to find solutions to
long standing problems
• but less bespoke and reduced named staff

11. “A unified catalogue
will be a significant
step towards a high
quality service for
our students”

12. Building on the Unicat:
• has allowed us to start
working together to
building more robust
collection processes
between the partners
• we are aiming to share
information
automatically with
partners including the
NHS

13. Other changes, good and
bad:
• Wider team teaching
• Testing of 1:2:1s being
offered to staff
• Some sacrifices: input
into CAT formal
feedback exercise
currently not running

14. Where are we?
• On a slow path
• With partners continually surprised by just how complicated
things actually are...

15. catriona.kemp@hyms.ac.uk
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