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Looking for Patient Information

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 You can help your patients understand their condition better and improve their own outcomes by providing, or pointing them to, good quality patient information.

Whether you want to create your own bespoke patient information or find something ready-made, take a look at the options below.

Main resources to help you to find patient information:

BMJ Best Practice

  BMJ Best Practice is a clinical decision support tool, offering evidence-based information on a wide range of conditions and diseases.

Select the Patient Leaflets option from the top menu bar. You can then either browse the A-Z list or search for the condition. Once presented with the information you can either print it out or download it as a PDF file.

BMJ Best Practice is available to all NHS staff. Log in with your NHS OpenAthens username.

BMJ best practice screen-shot showing a leaflet for osteoarthritis

Clinical Key (UHNM staff only)

  Clinical Key is a clinical search engine, covering a wide range of full-text sources. It offers you quick and easy access to evidence-based content.

Select the Patient Education option from the main search page. You can then either: browse the A-Z list, search the list for the condition you want or focus the list by specialty.

When you print the leaflet you can select the language and text size as well as add extra content such as your services' contact details or any additional instructions.

Clinical Key is available to UHNM staff only. Log in with your NHS OpenAthens username.

clinical key screen-shot showing the list of leaflets available for osteoarthritis - including search options

Clinical Knowledge Summaries

  Clinical Knowledge Summaries offer primary care healthcare staff access to evidence-based summaries of a wide range of conditions and diseases. Some of the content will direct you to patient information sources in the Management chapter.

Select or search for the condition you are interested in. Select the management chapter from the left-hand-size. Look for patient information options.

Clinical Knowledge Summaries are freely available on the Internet.

clinical knowledge summaries page, showing the management chapter with suggested patient information options

TRIP

  TRIP is a healthcare-based search engine, searching across a range of good quality, evidence-based information sources. Enter the keywords for the condition or disease you are interested in. Then focus the results by selecting Patient Information from the left-hand-side. Select the resource you are interested in from the search results.

TRIP is freely available on the Internet. However, extra content is available if you log in using your NHS OpenAthens username.

search results page for TRIP, showing the patient leaflets returned for osteoarthritis

You might also like to take a look at:

Health Literacy GeoData

   What are the health literacy levels of the population of Stoke on Trent or Staffordshire? Find out from the Health Literacy GeoData site where you can search for a local area and find out health literacy and numeracy levels. How will this impact the patient information you provide?

NHS website

  The NHS website provides a wealth of information directed at the general public. Go to the A-Z section or search the website.

Patient UK

  The Patient UK website contains patient information written by a network of doctors. You can find some very detailed leaflets about conditions, treatments and medications. Search the site or use the main options at the top. You can print or download the information.

Patient support organisations

  You can often find good quality information on websites run by patient support organisations such as Mind, Macmillan Cancer Support etc

Patient Information subject links page from the Health Library

  We have a Patient Information subject links page on the Health Library website. You’ll find links to more resources here.

Understanding the patient experience:

Want to know more about how your patients experience their conditions? Then check out:

Patient Voices collection – the Health Library has a collection of books based on patient experiences. Learn more about how people cope with their conditions.

Patient Experience Library – online resource of examples of real patient experiences. Includes reports and surveys.

Get help

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For more help using Health Library resources or finding information:

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