Health Information for the Public from the National Health Service in South West England

Abstract

Highly publicized service issues in hospitals and within the National Health Service (NHS) have sparked numerous efforts to address the patient experience. Recognizing the need for quality health information for the public, South West England Web information services offer an example of how local and regional NHS organizations have responded to the call for access to quality health information resources. On the national level, NHS Direct has proven particularly innovative in its efforts to provide health information access to hard to reach populations. Suggestions for future library health information services for the public include improved metadata for Web-based services, a revised consumer health database, and information prescription programs.

Information prescriptions, 1930–2013: an international history and comprehensive review

“…In general, most are self-help books that the physician would instruct the patient to read. In Wales, Frude devel oped and implemented such a practice for mental disorders, which the government adopted for all of Wales in 2005 [27][28][29], Other services were imple mented in England and Scotland [25,26,[76][77][78][79], with the NHS rolling out a nationwide books on prescrip tion program in 2013 [31,65]. In that program, public libraries maintain a collection of thirty self-help books on mild to moderate mental disorders for which primary care physicians would write book prescrip tions.…”

Health information outreach: a survey of U.S. academic libraries, highlighting a midwestern university's experience

“…Thus, the trend seems to be one of HIO to healthcare workers and to the general public, including patients . The literature does not, however, appear to reveal significant trends specific to HIO in academic libraries and to general campus end users.…”

“…7 Thus, the trend seems to be one of HIO to healthcare workers and to the general public, including patients. [8][9][10][11][12] The literature does not, however, appear to reveal significant trends specific to HIO in academic libraries and to general campus end users. The authors have chosen to focus on this type of HIO, with an emphasis on students as end users and limited to the United States.…”