Armchair Involvement is a new feature on the NHS
Institute for Innovation and Improvement website. It aims to be a
practical guide to using technology to engage people in health service
improvement. The website includes links to: a video about the
project, descriptions of the technologies available (using examples
and outlining benefits and risks), and an area to share examples of
using technologies to engage staff, patients, carers, service users
and the public.
The Cochrane Collaboration Qualitative Research Methods
Group has set up ASQUS - a new discussion list for sharing
methodological developments in qualitative evidence syntheses
(qualitative systematic reviews). The list will be used to exchange
methodological developments, details of new publications, provide
advice and share details of training and conference events. To join
the list, please see the instructions at:
Cancer e-Atlas has been jointly developed for
National Cancer Intelligence Network by Yorkshire & Humber Public
Health Observatory (on behalf of the Association of Public Health
Observatories) and Northern & Yorkshire Cancer Registry (on behalf of
the UK association of Cancer Registries). The interactive e-Atlas has
been developed to improve access to cancer statistics across England
for health care professionals, commissioners, health service managers,
and the public. The atlas contains information on incidence,
mortality and survival for the common types of cancer in men and
women.
The Healthcare Commission has launched a
Maternity section of its website. Aimed at patients and the public,
the site provides information on local maternity services. This
includes the findings of the Healthcare Commission national review of
maternity services and survey of mothers in England. Information on
maternity services can be searched by name of the service or
location/postcode.
(the) health informaticist is a blog formed by a
group of people working in the field of health informatics. It covers
topics such as knowledge management, web 2.0, and evidence based
medicine. To give a flavour of the discussions, the most recent posts
are about: The Department of Health Information Accreditation Scheme
and Information Prescriptions project, Medpedia, and Cuil, a new
search engine.
The National Cancer
Intelligence Network (NCIN) launched in June 2008. The NCIN aims to coordinate the
collection, analysis and publication of comparative national
information on diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for types of cancers
and types of patient, in a way which is useful to patients,commissioners and
service providers and other interested parties.
The National Library
for Public Health, a specialist library of the National Library for
Health, was launched officially in May 2008. It replaces the Public
Health Electronic Library (PHeL) and contains resources in line with the objectives of
the white papers Choosing Health: making healthy choices easier
and Our health, our care, our say.
NHS Choices has launched a new section of its
website, designed to give patients and the public more information
about how to get involved in clinical trials.
On 31 March 2008, the National Library for Health
launched “Search 2.0”, a new search tool that allows searching of
healthcare databases directly from the NLH website. Users require an
NHS Athens ID to search the databases via Search 2.0. NLH is
continually developing and new features and improvements to the search
tool, the latest of which are outlined in the June edition of the NLH
newsletter:
The UK Statistics Authority was launched on 1
April 2008. It is an independent body operating at arm’s length from
government as a non-ministerial department, directly accountable to
Parliament. The overall objective of the authority is to
promote and safeguard the quality of official
statistics that serve the public good. It is also required
to safeguard the comprehensiveness of official statistics, and ensure
good practice in relation to official statistics. Its three main
functions are:
