Your complete guide to using evidence

This toolkit will help you find, appraise and apply evidence for your programme, service change, innovation or pilot. It’s primarily for those involved in health and social care services, but the principles and approaches can be applied across sectors.

Identify

1

Access

2

Appraise

3

Apply

4

Share & manage

5
HOW EVIDENCE CAN HELP

What is evidence?

Whether you’re working in health and social care or are a service user, you may need to look for the latest evidence about a topic you are involved in. This might be to inform a decision, an evaluation or your choices as a patient.

So what does evidence mean in this context? It refers to a range of different sources of information. Research papers, guidelines, evaluations, population and surveillance data, policy, health needs assessments, activity data, feedback from stakeholders, patients, carers and the public are all sources of evidence.

Two co-workers having a conversation

The Evaluation and Evidence toolkits go hand in hand. Using and generating evidence to inform decision making is vital to improving services and people’s lives.

About the toolkits