Surf's Up - Internet sites of interest
Anthea Sutton
Information Officer (Reviews and Special
Projects)
ScHARR
Email:
Caron Hartley
Research Librarian
Kings Fund Information and
Library Service
Email:
1) New
Sites/Resources
18 Weeks Delivery
Programme
http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk/public/default.aspx
This is a new
website dedicated to supporting the NHS in delivering a maximum wait
for patients of 18 weeks from GP referral to the start of treatment.
The site includes information designed to help the NHS plan and
implement the changes needed, together with resources, case studies
and details of initiatives and innovations around the NHS that are
already achieving improvements in the patient journey.
Audit
Commission Area Profiles
http://www.areaprofiles.audit-commission.gov.uk/
The Audit
Commission has launched a new web site that offers a profile of the
quality of life and services for each local authority area. The site
is designed to help better decisions to be made locally and to support
local accountability. It will be particularly helpful to councils and
their partners in local strategic partnerships (LSPs) and to central
government and national agencies. The ten quality of life themes
covered by the profiles are: community cohesion and involvement,
community safety, culture and leisure, economic well-being, education
and life-long learning, environment, health and social well-being,
housing, people and place, and transport and access.
Bird Flu
There are several new websites and resources about
avian influenza:
Avian
Influenza
http://www.le.ac.uk/li/khn5/birdflu.html
Keith Nockels, Information Librarian at
the Clinical Sciences Library, University of Leicester, has compiled a
web page of links relating to avian influenza. This includes links to
UK and international resources.
NeLH Health Management Specialist
Library Hot Topic
http://rms.nelh.nhs.uk/healthManagement/viewResource.asp?searchText=avian&searchZone=%2Fhealth
Management%2FsearchResponse.asp&dg=62&uri=http%3A//libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/common/resources/%
3Fid%3D104910
The Health Management Specialist Library
has created a hot topic on “Preparing for potential Pandemic Influenza
(Avian Influenza)”. Hot topics provide information
about key current issues in health policy and management and are
updated on a regular basis.
NHS Networks Avian Flu
http://www.networks.nhs.uk/138.php
The NHS Networks web site has added a
page on avian flu. The page has links to all relevant Department of
Health publications and other useful links and downloads.
Pandemic Flu
http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/EmergencyPlanning/PandemicFlu/fs/en
The Department of Health have a web page
that includes links to the UK Health Departments’ UK influenza
pandemic contingency plan, information and resources for health
professionals and the public on pandemic influenza.
British National
Formulary for Children
http://bnfc.org/
A British
National Formulary for Children (BNFC) has been launched, which aims
to be a practical, relevant and authoritative information source for
all health professionals involved in the drug therapy of children.
The BNFC will provide information on the use of drugs in neonates,
infants, children and adolescents up to 18 years of age.
Choose and Book
Unplugged
http://www.chooseandbook.nhs.uk/staff/training/unplugged
Choose and Book Unplugged is a
demonstration tool to inform and train people who are new to the
Choose and Book service. The tool can be downloaded to computers for
users to work through a series of simulations that reflect the real
life use of Choose and Book.
Developing Community
Hospitals
http://www.developingcommunityhospitals.org.uk/index.php
This new site
from the Health and Social Care Change Agent (CAT) Team and the
Community Hospitals Association (CHA) is for people involved in the
development of community hospitals, including commissioners, service
improvement managers, modern matrons, professional leads, the public
and overview and scrutiny committees. The website has six main
themes: Involving People, Taking Stock of Current Services, Preparing
for Change, Options for Development, Making Changes, Evaluation and
Governance. These topics are supported by references and case studies,
and many have a checklist to take stock of local developments.
Dr Foster Directory of UK
Complementary Practitioners
http://www.drfoster.co.uk/cam/
Dr Foster has launched a new directory of complementary
practitioners in the UK. The directory covers complementary
practitioners who are members of appropriate registration bodies in
the fields of acupuncture, homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, and
herbal medicine.
DrugData Blog
http://drugscope.blogspot.com/
DrugScope has created a blog for
DrugData, their online catalogue, to inform users about new content.
The blog displays the most recent posts, but an archive of past posts
is also available. In addition, each Friday the blog will feature an
article focusing on an element of the collection or DrugScope’s wider
service.
Food4Thought
http://www.bhf.org.uk/food4thought/index_home.asp?SecID=1742
The British Heart Foundation has
launched the Food4Thought campaign following their survey that found
that 36% of 8-14 year olds did not know that the main ingredient of
chips was potato. The website is aimed at children to help them make
responsible food choices.
Lab Tests Online UK
http://www.labtestsonline.org.uk/
Lab Tests Online UK is a patient
information website designed specifically to help UK patients better
understand the many clinical lab tests that are part of routine care
as well as diagnosis and treatment of a broad range of conditions and
diseases. The website provides detailed descriptions of tests,
descriptions of illness cross-referenced to relevant tests, news on
advances in laboratory testing, and links to other sources of
information that can help answer patient’s questions about health and
treatment.
NeLH Specialist
Libraries
http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/specialist/
The National electronic Library for
Health has launched three more Specialist Libraries as follows:
Eyes and Vision
http://libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/eyes/
The NeLH Eyes
and Vision Specialist Library was launched on World Sight Day. The
purpose of the library is to find, organise, and facilitate access to
the best currently available evidence on eye health in order to
support and inform clinical care in England.
Knowledge Management
http://libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/knowledgemanagement/
The NeLH Knowledge Management Specialist Library aims
to provide the best available evidence and practical examples of
health professionals successfully sharing and applying knowledge and
experience to their daily activities.
Palliative and
Supportive Care
http://libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/palliative/
The Palliative and Supportive Care
Specialist Library aims to provide convenient and comprehensive access
to the best available evidence in all aspects of palliative and
supportive care.
Older People’s Mental
Health
http://www.olderpeoplesmentalhealth.csip.org.uk/Home
This new website from the Care Services
Improvement Partnership (CSIP) aims to highlight the key principles of
good mental health services and social care for older people. This
includes links to policy and legislation, resources and news and
events.
Open Up to Mouth
Cancer
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/openuptomouthcancer/
Open Up to Mouth Cancer is a new
campaign from Cancer Research UK. The website provides information on
the warning signs of mouth cancer and how to reduce the risk. There
is also a specific area of the website for health professionals
including links to download or order campaign resources.
Pharmacists with Special Interests
http://www.primarycarecontracting.nhs.uk/119.php
The Primary Care Contracting (PCC) website has produced
a new set of web pages for pharmacists with special interests (PhwSI)
which aim to keep all practitioners up to date with developments in
their workstream.
Prison Health Research
Network
http://www.phrn.nhs.uk/
The Prison Health Research Network (PHRN)
is an initiative funded by the Department of Health and led jointly by
the Universities of Manchester, Southampton and Sheffield, and the
Institute of Psychiatry. PHRN aims to
identify research and development priorities in prison health care,
and coordinate a programme of research to address these identified
gaps, focusing on the four workstreams pertinent to prisons:
dentistry, mental health, primary care and substance misuse. The
website includes links to education and training, conferences and
workshops, funding opportunities, journals, a discussion forum and
details of research projects in the field.
Renal PatientView
https://www.renalpatientview.org/
Renal PatientView is a new web service
that allows patients with kidney disease to access their personal
medical details and learn more about their condition by logging on.
The web site has been created to enable renal patients to access
information about their condition and to help them make
better-informed choices about their own care, in line with the Renal
NSF.
Safer Healthcare
http://www.saferhealthcare.org.uk/ihi
Safer
Healthcare is a web portal, launched by the National Patient Safety
Agency (NPSA), which aims to provide healthcare professionals with
knowledge and innovation for safer healthcare. The portal provides
links to tools, advice and research on best practice in patient
safety.
UK Prostate
Link
http://www.prostate-link.org.uk
UK Prostate
Link is a new national website which provides intelligent sign-posting
to quality-assessed information about prostate cancer on the web. The
site contains a database of around 1,200 quality-assessed links to
information for patients, their families, carers and health
professionals. This project has been funded by the Department of
Health and a coalition of charities and professional bodies.
2) Changes to Existing
Sites/Resources
African Index Medicus
http://indexmedicus.afro.who.int/
The African Index Medicus database has
been reactivated and is now available on the Internet through the
WHO-AFRO web site. The database is produced by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and the Association for Health Information and
Libraries in Africa (AHILA) and provides an international index to
African health literature and information sources.
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
RSS feed
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/rss.htm
The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
(CRD) website now has an RSS feed enabling you to keep up to date with
new CRD publications and additions to the site. Information on RSS
feeds, how to use them and instructions to sign up for the CRD feed is
available at:
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/rss.htm.
Clinical Evidence
http://www.clinicalevidence.com/
In response to customer feedback,
navigation of the Clinical Evidence website has been improved.
Enhancements include: “Google” style search results, links to the BNF
at condition and treatment level, an improved table of contents and a
drop-down menu of all available conditions. The layout of each
condition has also been simplified in a bid to be more user friendly.
Community Care
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/
Community Care have re-launched their
new look website. To reflect the changing social care market it is
now possible for people to personalise the site with the content that
is relevant to their role and working life. This is done by selecting
whether you view all social care, children’s services or services for
adults. There have also been improvements to many areas of the
website, such as news and jobs and the addition of new areas such as
“Coffee Break” which includes quizzes, games, online puzzles, Sudoku
and challenges.
Estates and Facilities Management
http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance/OrganisationPolicy/EstatesAndFacilitiesManagement/fs/en
The Department of Health have produced a
set of new web pages on estates and facilities management that replace
the NHS Estates web site. This new set of pages includes links to
property management, engineering, technology and environment,
sustainable development, knowledge and information, capital and
procurement, research and development fund, and specialist property
advice.
NeLH-NLH Migration
http://www.library.nhs.uk/forlibrarians/nlhprogramme/nelh-nlhmigration
Work is now
underway on migrating the content from the NeLH website to the NLH
website. Some resources will be incorporated into a relevant
Specialist Library, some will be replaced by new services and some
will change in nature. Several preparatory changes have been made to
the NeLH homepage:
-
The
Editorial resources at the foot of the page have been removed.
Evidence based decision making, quality and clinical governance will
be covered by the Knowledge Management and Health Management
Specialist Libraries.
-
NSF Zones
have been re-shaped, focussing on information provided by the
relevant Specialist Libraries and current awareness services (NB -
the new NSF Zone will initially only be available from the NeLH
website. Work is underway to develop an NSF presence for the NLH
website).
Specialist
Libraries will be migrating to the NLH. Professional Portals will be
wound down and replaced with current awareness and personalisation
services for professionals. The NeLH homepage will remain in place
until at least April 2006.
NeLH Skin Disorders Specialist
Library
http://libraries.nelh.nhs.uk/skin/
The NeLH Skin Conditions Specialist
Library has now become the Skin Disorders Specialist Library. This
name change is the result of a resolution passed by the Library’s
Stakeholders Group and is intended to emphasise the economic and
social importance of skin disorders and the serious impact they can
have on patients.
NHS and Primary Care Magazines
http://www.nhs.uk/nhsmagazine/default.asp
The Department of Health is no longer
publishing NHS and Primary Care Magazines. An archive of past content
will continue to be available from the above website until the end of
2005.
NLH RSS Directory
http://www.library.nhs.uk/rss/directory/intro.aspx
A preview version of the National
Library for Health RSS Directory is now available from the NLH site.
The directory is designed to allow searching or browsing by category
and provides help and tutorials for those new to RSS. The directory
is still being populated with feeds at the moment, and there is a link
for submitting feeds for inclusion. Comments and feedback on the
directory are welcome, and should be sent to
nelh@cfh.nhs.uk.
Primary Care Contracting
http://www.primarycarecontracting.nhs.uk/1.php
The Primary Care Contracting website has
reorganised its content under the headings: Resources, Events,
Dentistry, Pharmacy, Innovation in Primary Care, Medical, Practice
Based Commissioning, Optometry, Home Oxygen.
Royal College of Surgeons
http://www.rcseng.ac.uk
The Royal College of Surgeons website
has relaunched, which means that many URLs from the previous site have
changed. However the homepage remains at:
http://www.rcseng.ac.uk.
Western Journal of
Medicine
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/tocrender.fcgi?journal=183
The BMJ Publishing Group and PubMed
Central (PMC) have announced that the full text archive of WJM Western
Journal of Medicine is now available online via PMC. WJM, a
peer-reviewed journal for clinicians in the Western states of the USA,
ceased publication in 2002 but this re-issue to PMC means content from
1974-2002 can now be accessed. The journal contains original research
articles, regular debates on key issues in health care as well as
ideas and opinions relating to best clinical practice, managed care,
alternative forms of health practice, and ethics/policy issues.
Back to Inform 16 (3)
| 
