Evaluation of Reading Well Books on Prescription

The Reading Agency would like to commission an external agency, or two agencies with one taking an overall supervisory role, to undertake an evaluation of Reading Well Books on Prescription 2018-19 in both England and Wales.

Reading Well helps people to understand and manage their health and wellbeing using self-help reading. The scheme is delivered via quality-assured booklists endorsed by health experts, as well as people with lived experience of the health conditions covered. These lists are available from public libraries through either self-referral or referral by health professionals.

This is the sixth annual evaluation of the programme in England and the first-year evaluation for Wales. The evaluation will focus on the following key areas: the programme's impact on users, libraries, health partners and prescribers; the reach of the programme; the cost benefits of the scheme as a health intervention; and the particular impact of the scheme being made available bilingually (English and Welsh). We expect that both quantitative and qualitative methods will be required.

Key tasks will include:

• Conducting quantitative and qualitative research on the Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme
• Analysing and reporting on data and feedback related to the Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme for the final cumulative report
• Advising on the development of survey tools to generate prescriber and library data about the use and impact of the scheme
• Drawing comparisons between data in England and Wales and presenting identified trends
• Reviewing the methodology used in the past and making general recommendations for future approaches that will effectively capture the high-level data needed to evaluate the programme as a whole, while retaining the ability to analyse localised trends

Deadline for submissions: 12 March 2019 at 5 p.m.

Budget: The total maximum budget available for this research project is £22,000 inclusive of VAT.

Application details can be found in the ITT.