Surf's Up Volume 10 (3)
Lucy Johnson, King's Fund Library and Information Service
Remember when Tony Blair uttered those three magic words when winning
the hearts and minds of the electorate? No, not those three words
(tut!); these ones: 'education, education, education'. Nowadays,
in relation to the NHS the policy theme seems to have altered slightly
and the mantra has become: 'electronic, electronic, electronic' (which,
of course, may lead on to the need for 'education, education, education'
once the actual IT skills of the audiences intended to use all this electronic
information have been properly assessed ...)
What is clear is that a proliferation of 'official' health web sites
has emerged. The list ranges from the National
electronic Library for Health to NeLH's patient floor, NHS
Direct; it includes the site of the NHS
Information Authority; and it brings in along the way sites such as
HAZnet,
a tool for linking together the Health Action Zones around the country,
the site of Our Healthier Nation, the
NICE pages and the site for the NHS
Beacon Services. Many of these do contain highly useful information,
presented in a clear way; however, there is always the question nowadays
of which one to turn to first?
It seems that the Web designers are ahead of the game in anticipating
this question. Yet another site has very recently come out of the
NHS information machine, Nhs.uk.
This, it seems, is designed to co-ordinate the output of all these other
sites and, in its own words, 'will provide a strongly branded gateway ... to
NHS web sites, and licensed or accredited web sites and services, linking
sites and providing added value through 'editorial' such as news'.
This sounds good but when it started out there was very little on the site
at all. I waited with baited breath to see what gems it might signpost.
That sounds utterly cynical but in fact it's true; one of the few things
which Nhs.uk first put up on its pages
really was a bit of a jewel, albeit one which required considerable mining
skills to find. The Red Book,
that bible of fees and allowances for GPs is up on the web at www.nhs.uk/redbook.
The URL works fine like this, typed into a browser's the Locator box; however,
it's more difficult to find via the home page of Nhs.uk.
Nhs.uk has grown since its first days
and now holds a searchable database of local services, the
NHS Plan and information about the history of the NHS.
Another of the 'official' sites to have come to public prominence in
the last few weeks is that of the Public
Health Observatories. These eight observatories, springing from
the Saving lives: our healthier nation white paper, are to be linked
together to form a national network of knowledge, information and surveillance
in public health, part of which network will be shown on the Public Health
Observatories' 'umbrella' Web site. Currently, the Web site contains
details about the observatories, how they are being set up and the policy
that sits behind them. The site is full of techno-joy, containing
downloadable presentations, Word documents and links to other sites of
interest, such as the National electronic
Library for Health and sites connected with the eight regional observatories
as well as, perhaps surprisingly, to other non-health related observatories,
such as the Vatican Observatory
and the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
A big hurrah to the Department of Health's statistics people: the 'official'
statistics available on the Department's site have grown in number
lately. It is now possible to find many different statistics, including
those relating to complaints or prescriptions or even alcohol intake and
the numbers of smokers. If you want to find out which Health Authorities
are considered the best - or worst - in the land, however, you should turn
to The sick list, the ranked list created by Channel 4
and The King's Fund earlier this
year. The Authorities are ranked according to six performance indicators:
deaths from cancer (per 100,000 people); deaths from heart disease (per
100,000); total number of people on hospital waiting lists (per 1,000);
percentage of people on waiting lists waiting over 12 months; number of
hip operations (per 100,000); and deaths from 'avoidable' diseases (per
100,000).
Lastly, if it's that seemingly very elusive snippet of information that
you require from the web: brief contact details of NHS organisations (the
sort of information which you think should be there but more often than
not isn't), you could try going straight to Lyra
Medical Ltd in the first place, instead of hunting around in a variety
of other web sites. The reason? Lyra has brought together the
telephone numbers of NHS Trusts, Health Authorities, Community Health Councils
and Primary Care Groups in one place. It also provides a searchable
database of individual medical specialists or clinicians in every specialism
listed by the General Medical Council.
You can even submit your own clinical experience range by visiting the
Lyra site or by dropping them something in the post.
After all that, if you are utterly fed up with all these unfriendly
statistics and pieces of policy, if you are bored with hard information
generally, you could always turn to something rather more soft and cuddly.
Those of you who remember Oliver Postgate, Peter Firmin and the Small Films
company will be delighted to know that there is a site dedicated to those
small, furry creatures of yesteryear, the
Clangers. There is enough on this site to keep almost anyone
busy during their (ahem!) lunch hour.
Last updated October 2000.
Go back to IFMH Inform, 10 (3)
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