Autism Data, the
National Autistic Society's database, is now freely available to
search on the NAS website. The contents include bibliographic records
of everything in the NAS Information Centre Library, together with the
details of research articles on autism and Asperger’s syndrome
published in journals whichjournals that are not part of their
holdings.
The Concordat is a
voluntary agreement between bodies that regulate, audit, inspect or
review elements of health and healthcare in England. There are now 20
signatories working together to coordinate their activities such as
audits, reviews and inspections. This site supports the
implementation of the Concordat, and also provides searchable access
to Concordat Activity scheduling. This part of the website is
intended as a one-stop-shop to check what inspection, audit and review
activities are planned for NHS trusts and registered independent
healthcare providers in England, and is aimed at staff in those
providers and in the signatory organisations.
This website gives
iInformation aiming to help patients make an informed decision about
whether or not to have cosmetic surgery or non-surgical cosmetic
treatments, and includes the following: lists of questions patients
should ask themselves when considering cosmetic surgery; an A-Z
listing of cosmetic surgical treatments; what qualifications mean and
how to make a complaint. It was compiled to meet the requirements of
the Report of the Expert Group on the Regulation of Cosmetic Surgery.
In November 2005, as
part of the Your Health, Your Care, Your Say consultation, NHS
Networks was asked by the Department of Health to request examples of
good practice from all the PCTs in England relating to these areas:
Integration; Prevention; Rapid Access and Services normally provided
in hospital. More than 100 case studies were received, and it was
decided to publish all the case studies in an on-line database of good
practice in primary care. The database is searchable, and gives basic
details of projects and contacts.
The Healthcare
Commission and the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery have jointly
launched a website with information on outcomes of Heart Surgery in
Great Britain. Influenced by the Learning from Bristol enquiry, the
website gives rates of survival from operations from most of the heart
units in England and Wales, with surgeons from 17 of those units
choosing to provide survival rates from their operations. It also
provides general information for patients about different operations,
the benefits of having heart surgery, and details about what to expect
after you have had an operation.
The Improvement
Foundation, a not for profit company limited by guarantee,
incorporates the work of the National Primary Care Development Team (NPDT).
Their aim is to develop capacity and capability in public services to
use continued improvement methods for the benefit of service users.
The website gives details of the various projects and collaboratives,
including the National Primary Care Collaborative and the Mental
Health collaborative. A section labelled the Knowledge Centre is being
developed.
The Information Centre
is responsible for reducing bureaucracy through effective coordination
of collections, elimination of duplication, and delivering efficient
and effective information sources to enable service delivery
improvements for service users regardless of the point of delivery.
This searchable catalogue contains summary details of data collections
related to Health and Social Care services.
This website has been
designed and developed by information professionals from UK
organisations actively involved in the field of information literacy,
and includes news, case studies, examples of best practice and freely
available toolkits. Their aim is to provide a practical resource that
information professionals regularly visit to discover the latest
developments. In the UK, information literacy is defined by the CILIP
as: "....knowing when and why you need information, where to find it,
and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner."
On December 8th 2005
the Scottish Information Commissioner ruled that Information Services
(ISD) – a division of NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) – should
provide information on the mortality rates of surgeons in Scotland
from 2002/3 to 2004/5. In order to comply with this ruling they are
now publishing the data; however they are, stating that all users
consider carefully the background information given before making any
attempt to draw conclusions from the figures.
The Office for
Disability Issues, which was established in December 2005, is the
focal point within government to coordinate disability policy across
all departments and implement recommendations in the Prime Minister's
Strategy Unit report Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People.
PALS Online is the
website of the national network of NHS Patient Advice and Liaison
Services This site aims to: provide information about the PALS
throughout England and how they can be contacted; provide a directory
of links to other health and support agency websites; provide a
library of resources for PALS workers to share with each other and the
public; and publish news about PALS service development, PALS networks
and articles for anyone in patient and public involvement in the
health service. Further development to the website will provide new
features during 2006.
Patient Opinion is a
new service enabling patients to share stories about local health
services. It has been set up as a social enterprise, aiming to be
open and transparent about how it works and what it
does, and to become a sustainable and financially independent
organisation. The comments can be searched by postcode or
service.
As part of its role in
promoting good practice in social care, the Social Care Institute for
Excellence (SCIE) has commissioned this website to enable social care
providers to review and improve their human resource (or people
management) policies and practice. It is aimed at smaller providers
(those with little access to specialist human resources support) and
consists of a series of organisational audits covering the journey of
an employee from recruitment to exit interview.
Please Ask is a new
magazine and website from the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA)
encouraging patients to ask questions and raise concerns about their
healthcare. It provides tips for people going into hospital, as well
as for those taking medication, having emergency treatment, and
supporting children or elderly relatives in hospital. It also invites
patients to share their experiences and concerns in the hopes that
this can help the NHS learn from its mistakes and improve patient
safety.
This site, published
independently by a GP in Swindon, publishes the data produced from the
Quality and Outcomes Framework of the GP contract in the UK. The site
now includes all of the data from all four countries for the year
2004/5. The 2005/6 data is expected in September. It is possible to
search for a PCT or surgery, and to look at service prevalence data
down to PCT level, plotted on an interactive map. Raw data is also
available from the site.
Tobacco Information
Scotland (TIS) is an initiative from ASH Scotland's Information
Service and is funded by the British Heart Foundation. It offers a
searchable database of smoking-related resources relevant to Scotland,
such as: statistics and information on smoking-related illnesses and
diseases; policies and information on tobacco issues and inequalities;
government policies, targets and legislation; smoking cessation
guidelines; aids and services, and issues relating to the tobacco
industry. Each resource is indexed using MeSH and ANRF (a specialist
tobacco control thesaurus). On the 26th March 2006, Scotland became
the first part of the UK to implement a smoking ban in enclosed public
places. It is now illegal to smoke in any enclosed public place,
including shopping centres, sports centres, cafes, bars, restaurants,
schools, theatres and bingo halls.
The National Institute
for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has redesigned and
relaunched its website, reflecting its merger with the Health
Development Agency (HDA). The new site integrates clinical and public
health content on one site.
Intute will be the new
name for the
RDN Resource Discovery Network (RDN) service. The current eight
subject gateways will be re-organised to create four major subject
groups: Arts and Humanities (bringing together Artifact and Humbul);
Science, Engineering, Technology (bringing together EEVL, GEsource and
PSIgate); Health and Life Sciences (BIOME), and Social Sciences
(Bringing together Altis and SOSIG). The aim is to complete the
re-structure and adopt the new brand by mid-2006. The purpose of this
exercise is to create a new more consolidated service and to provide a
single interface for users.
The mission of the NHS
Institute for Innovation and Improvement is to improve health outcomes
and raise the quality of delivery in the NHS by accelerating the
uptake of proven innovation and improvements in healthcare delivery
models and processes, medical products and devices and healthcare
leadership. They have been developing and extending their website over the early
part of 2006.
