The Social Prescribing and Self Care Wiki

https://wiki.healthylondon.org/Social_Prescribing_and_Self_Care_Wiki

Produced by the Health London Partnership, the Social Prescribing and Self Care Wiki contains an extensive library of resources around social prescribing (referring people to non-clinical services) and self care including:

• policy and strategy
• how to commission
• monitoring and evaluating
• research reports
• examples of services 
• videos
• links to other useful resources

Although London based, the Wiki is a really useful resource for anyone interested in social prescribing or self care.

13th edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry now available online

Access on Ebook Central

The newest edition of the popular Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry is now available online via the Ebook Central site.

The fully updated 13th edition features:

• A guide to psychiatric disorders and psychopharmacology
• Which drugs to prescribe and the side effects to look for, how to augment them or swap them
• Specific guidance on common psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression or bipolar
• Guidance on specific populations such as children, the elderly and pregnant women

To access the book you will need to go to the the Ebook Central site and log in with your OpenAthens account.

If you don't have an Athens account NHS staff and attached students can register for one online.

If you need more help in accessing this, or the many other electronic books available to you via your NHS OpenAthens account, we have produced a guide on how to use them which you can find on our web site, along with additional guides to e-journals, databases and more. Alternatively, you can always contact us.

Important changes to the BNF and BNFC apps

There is a new version of the BNF and BNFC apps now available.

The previous versions produced by NICE will soon stop being updated and so it is important to install the new one in order to ensure you are using the latest information.

The good news is that the new version has been completely redesigned and no longer requires you to log in with an OpenAthens password. The app is being made freely available to any non-commercial users in the UK (it is not available outside the UK)

The new version also contains all the information from both the BNF and the BNFC in a single interface (you can select which you want from a drop down menu).

The app can be configured to automatically update itself (which is does on a monthly basis) so you can always be sure you are using the most current information.

There is also an evidence grading feature where you can see the strength of the evidence behind recommendations within the content.

The app is currently available for iOS (Apple) and Android devices. There is no Windows phone version at present.

For more information please see the BNF App FAQs page.

12th edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry now available online

Access it online

The newest edition of the popular Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry is now available online via the 123Library site.

The fully updated 12th edition features:

• A guide to psychiatric disorders and psychopharmacology
• Which drugs to prescribe and the side effects to look for, how to augment them or swap them
• Specific guidance on common psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression or bipolar
• Guidance on specific populations such as children, the elderly and pregnant women

To access the guidelines you will need to go to the 123Library site and click the large log in button at the top of the page, then click Athens. Enter your Athens user name and password and you will then be able to access the book.

If you don't have an Athens account NHS staff and attached students can register for one online. If you have an account but have forgotten the password you can reset it here.

If you need more help in accessing this, or the many other electronic books available to you via your NHS Athens account, we have produced a guide on how to use them which you can find on our web site, along with additional guides to e-journals, databases and more. Alternatively, you can always contact us.

Web site of the month: Meds IQ

Medication errors are a significant cause of preventable harm to children and young people. Meds IQ is a brand new web site that seeks to support the improvement in paediatric patient safety.

www.medsiq.org

The site has sections on:

• Safe prescribing
• Drug error reporting
• Medicines reconciliation
• Supporting patients

Meds IQ brings together tools to support improved safety and reducing harm as well as examples of improvement projects (including contact details) that have made a real difference in the reduction of medication errors. Free registration is required to use some of the features.

The site also features:

• Resource library - see how others have tackled similar problems 
• Favourites - build your own menu of resources which are of most use to you 
• An online professional community - share your own ideas and learning
• E-learning resources – develop your understanding and skills in paediatric prescribing

Meds IQ is a really useful resource for any health professional working with children and young people who is involved in prescribing or drug administration.

December Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the December issue you can find:

• Home-based self sampling to test for sexually transmitted infections
• Risk of cervical or vaginal cancer in women treated for cervical intraepithelia neoplasia
• Adverse drug reactions with new medicines
• Reducing hospital admissions from nursing homes for older people
• Short-term mortality after acute myocardial infarction

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

There are also new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Psoriasis (NICE Guideline 153)
• Lower limb peripheral arterial disease (NICE Guideline 147) 

Changes in access to the BNF and BNFC online

Both the BNF and the BNF for Children have moved web sites. They are now no longer available from the bnf.org address, but are now both hosted on the Medicines Complete site.

To access them directly use the links below:

• BNF https://www.medicinescomplete.com/mc/bnf/current/

• BNFC https://www.medicinescomplete.com/mc/bnfc/current/

If you are using a device on an NHS network you should be able to access both versions without the need to log in.

If you are using them from outside of the NHS, you will need to have an Open Athens account to enable you to log in.

Both the BNF and BNFC are also available as an App for Android and iOS (Apple) devices via the NICE web site. Again you will need to log into Athens when you download the App to confirm your eligibility.

Changes in access to the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry and other ebooks

We have moved some our our e-books to a different supplier.

The new 123Library platform is easy to use and has a number of useful features such as allowing you to highlight text, make notes on ebooks, and place bookmarks in the text. You can even download the book for a limited time (which requires the free Abode Digital Editions).

You can find the titles directly from the links below:

• Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry (11th edition)
• Drugs During Pregnancy and Lactation: Treatment Options & Risk Assessment (2nd edition) 
• TNM Classification of Malignant Tumours (7th edition)

You can also access them via the library catalogue or  by logging into Open Athens and clicking on the 123Library link on the resources tab.

You will need an Open Athens password to be able to access the books. If you don't have one you can register online here.

European Antibiotic Awareness Day 2014 resources

18th November 2014

The European Antibiotic Awareness Day is an annual event, running on the 18th of November, designed to raise awareness of the threat of antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practice in antibiotic use (you can find the Department of Health's Antimicrobial Strategy 2013-2018 here).

This year Public Health England are running a campaign calling for everyone to pledge how they will make better use of antibiotics, via their Antibiotic Guardian site.

In conjunction with the Department of Health, PHE has produced a number of resources to promote European Antibiotic Day for both primary and secondary care. These include:

• Key messages on antibiotic use
• Quizzes and crosswords for the public, prescribers and pharmacists
• Posters and leaflets which can be adapted for local use
• Antimicrobial stewardship: toolkits and resources

If you are using social media the hashtag for the campaign will be #AntibioticGuardian and you can follow the European campaign on Twitter.

There is also a short video available from Public Health England to accompany the campaign called Will you be an Antibiotic Guardian? This explains the issues with antimicrobial resistance and what the public can do to help.

June Eyes on Evidence from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly bulletin from NICE Evidence Services which reviews significant new
evidence as it emerges and what this might mean for current practice.

In the June issue you can find:

• Acid-suppressive drugs and oesophageal adenocarinoma in Barrett's oesophagus
• Prescriptions for anxiolytics and hypnotics and risk of death
• Assessment and treatment of dementia in older adults
• Bedtime schedules and children's cognition and behaviour
• Trained glycaemia alert dogs for people with type 1 diabetes 

You can find all the previous issues of Eyes on Evidence or subscribe to receive the bulletin by email on the NICE Evidence Services site.

There are also three new Evidence Updates highlighting new information worth considering along side current guidance:

• Autism in adults (NICE Guideline 142)
• Opioids in palliative care (NICE Guideline 140)
• Physical activity and the environment (NICE Public Health Guideline 8)

European Antibiotic Awareness Day resources

18th of November

The European Antibiotic Awareness Day is an annual event, running on the 18th of November, designed to raise awareness of the threat of antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practice in antibiotic use (you can find the Department of Health's Antimicrobial Strategy 2013-2018 here).

The Department of Health has produced a number of resources for use in conjunction with European Antibiotic Day for both primary and secondary care.

Among the general items available are:

• A briefing with key messages
• Posters aimed at patients
• A leaflet
• Quizzes and crosswords
• Case studies in antimicrobal stewardship

There are also:

• Resources specific to secondary care including a prescribers check list and posters
• Resources specific to primary care including a web banner and the target antibiotics tool kit

You can also find a number of short videos on YouTube that could be used in waiting rooms and other public areas to deliver the message (the audio from these is also available for download as an MP3 file).

New ebook - Drugs in Pregnancy & Lactation now available

Drugs in Pregnancy and Lactation: A Reference Guide to Fetal and Neonatal Risk by Briggs, Freeman & Yaffe is now available online.

We also have Drugs During Pregnancy and Lactation: Treatment Options and Risk Assessment by Schaeffer as an ebook which you can find here.

To access the books you will need an NHS Athens password (NHS staff and attached students can register online).  You can of course find all of our stock on our catalogue.

NICE BNF and BNFC apps for smartphones and tablets

The NICE British National Formulary (BNF) and NICE British National Formulary for Children (BNFC) apps have been developed to provide easy access to the latest up-to-date prescribing information from the most widely-used medicines information resources within the NHS. 

Both the BNF and BNFC apps are available to download for free by health and social care professionals who work for or who are contracted by NHS England.

To access the apps you will need an NHS Athens password (NHS staff and attached students can register online). You can find more information about the apps, system requirements and trouble shooting on the NICE site.

Download NICE BNF

BNF: Android smartphone and tablet users

BNF: iPhone and iPad users

Download NICE BNFC

BNFC: Android smartphone and tablet users

BNFC: iPhone and iPad users

NICE have also produced an app allowing access to all of their guidance via smartphones and tablets which

Nice Guidance App

• Browse over 760 items (7000+ chapters) of NICE guidance. Guidance is arranged topically by conditions and diseases, and public health topics
• Rapidly search all NICE Guidance on your smartphone
• Select full guidance documents or selections of individual chapters from guidance documents, bookmark individual sections of guidance chapters for use as offline reference on your smartphone
• Automatically receive updates and new guidance as soon as it's published on the NICE website.

Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry now available online

Now available on MyiLibrary

The national issue with access to the Maudlsey Guidelines has remained unresolved. Given this is a popular item, we have decided to purchase electronic access to the guidelines ourselves.

You can now view the Guidelines via the MyiLibrary web site.

To access them you will need an NHS Athens account. If you don't have one, NHS staff and attached students can register online here. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it here.

Medicines and prescribing support from NICE

Medicines & Prescribing Centre

The National Prescribing Centre has now been integrated into the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence. NICE are now offering  a comprehensive suite of advice and support for delivering quality, safety, and efficiency in the use of medicines.

The Medicines and Prescribing Centre at NICE is currently is development and will provide:

• Evidence summaries on new medicines
• Evidence summaries on unlicensed and off label medicines
• Best practice advice for medicines management
• Bulletins and alerts available by email

Problems with 11th Edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry

Due to a national issue with the provider, the 11th edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines is currently unavailable via Athens.

SHA colleagues are working hard to resolve the issue as soon as possible and we hope the Guidelines will be available again shortly.

11th Edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry now available online

Go to MyiLibrary

The newest edition of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines in Psychiatry is now available online as part of the national core content of electronic books and journals provided to NHS staff in England.

To access the guidelines you will need to go to the MyiLibrary site and click the Athens link at the bottom of the page. Enter your Athens user name and password and you will then be able to access the book.

If you don't have an Athens account NHS staff and attached students can register for one online. If you have an account but have forgotten the password you can reset it here.

If you need more help in accessing this, or the many other electronic books available to you via your NHS Athens account, we have produced a guide on how to use them which you can find on our web site, along with additional guides to e-journals, databases and more.