Keeping up-to-date with new documents on the www - Document Awareness Bulletin

Keeping up-to-date with new policies, guidelines, consultations, statistics, local and national reports, conferences and events of relevance to PCT staff can be a time-consuming process.

The Document Awareness Bulletin aims to keep NHS staff working primarily in the PCTs up-to-date with new reports etc. The Bulletin is compiled by librarians in Merseyside and Cheshire (including myself!) who scan websites (inclusing Department of Health, Health Protection Agency, Every Child Matters, Kings FUnd, NICE, etc.) for new documents and send out via email on a bi-weekly basis.

Also included in the Bulletin are abstracts of selected research articles (with a PCT focus) published in peer-reviewed journals. Full text can be obtained upon request.

A sample of this week's items include:

Investigating drinking behaviours and alcohol knowledge amongst people resident in the Linacre and Derby wards of Sefton: interim report (17th September 2007)
This reports evaluates the impact of Sefton Primary Care Trust's social marketing campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the negative consequences of excessive alcohol use.
http://www.cph.org.uk/cph_pubs/reports/CH/Sefton Social Marketing Interim Report.pdf

How to put NICE Guidance into practice (24th September 2007)
This guide aims to help organisations: implement NICE guidance and other national policy; comply with core and developmental standards set in Standards for better health; meet the Healthcare Commission’s expectations. This guide is split into three parts – the first two focus on organisations directly responsible for implementation, and the third focuses on commissioning organisations.
http://www.nice.org.uk/download.aspx?o=455522

Why Your Child's Weight Matters (updated 13th September 2007)
The Government has developed a booklet for parents: "Why your child’s weight matters", which includes information on the National Child Measurement Programme, why maintaining a healthy weight is important, and the steps that parents can take to help their family develop a healthy lifestyle.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=148513&Rendition=Web

GP Profiles on NHS Choices (13th September 2007)
Letter from Mark Britnell, Director General of Commissioning and System Management, outlining a proposed initiative to enable GPs to directly change online information on the NHS Choices website.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=148542&Rendition=Web

To sign-up to the Bulletin email Michelle at madenm@edgehill.ac.uk

TRIPping through the evidence

TRIP (Turning Research Into Practice) is a free database that allows 'health professionals to easily find the highest-quality material available on the web - to help support evidence based practice'.

In addition to searching UK (NLH Guidelines) and international guidelines resources, clinical question and answering services (Primary Care Query Answering Service), patient information and image resources, TRIP currently searches 52 evidence-based synopses and critical appraisal resources including BestBETs, Bandolier and the Evidence Based Journals from the BMJ.

TRIP has a simple search facility (see below) and categorises the results making identification of different types of information (guidelines, patient information leaflets, evidence based synopses, etc) easy!

As an added bonus TRIP Evidence Reviews offer 'evidence blasts' allowing clinicians a quick and easy way of seeing the best new research published in the last 2-3 years.

A few words of caution...TRIP is very useful at quickly identifying useful resources but should not be substituted for a search of the healthcare databases (Medline, Cochrane, etc) if you undertaking a literature review. Bear in mind also that TRIP searches both UK and international resources, this is particularly important to consider when looking for guidelines or patient information.