Evidence use in everyday practice

There are a variety of ways of using evidence. It may be that you want to use:

• Evidence of effective practice developed elsewhere so that you can try new ways of doing things.
• Evidence to ‘benchmark’ your practice against.
• Evidence to give you ideas that will inform your thinking.

However, a number of barriers to using evidence can arise such as:

• Agreeing what counts as evidence when trying to encourage an evidence-based approach to practice,
• Agreeing on the ‘value’ of different types of evidence and knowledge,
• Allowing people the freedom to alter their approach, or way of thinking, based on research evidence,
• Finding time and space to reflect and discuss with colleagues the implications of new evidence.