Health Information Week - Media Literacy

Health Information Week is a national, multi-sector campaign promoting high-quality information for
patients and the public.

The theme for today's Health Information Week post is all about media literacy. 

How do we know what health news we can trust and do we know if it is accurate? This is a key health issue with the rise of social media and these media literacy resources aim to give patients the skills to make these judgements.

Checking the news yourself

• FactCheck: How to spot fake news (video) www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkwWcHekMdo
• Full Fact: Fact checking toolkit https://fullfact.org/toolkit/

Health news already checked

• Full Fact: Health https://fullfact.org/health/all/
• Health Feedback: https://healthfeedback.org/
• BBC Reality Check (not just health news): www.bbc.co.uk/news/reality_check

Sharing news and social media

• UK Government: Share Checklist https://sharechecklist.gov.uk/
• Poynter Institute: 10 tips for verifying viral social media videos www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2018/10-tips-for-verifying-viral-social-media-videos/ 

We have also updated our guide to good quality sources of information for patients which you can find on our web site here.

You can find a complete list of resources around media literacy with more links and including games and activities for children on the Health Information Week web site here.

Health Information Week day 3: Behind the headlines #HIW2019

Health Information Week is a national, multi-sector campaign to promote high quality information for patients and the public. High quality health information can have a huge impact on people’s ability to stay healthy and manage illnesses effectively, giving them a better quality of life.

Our campaign this year is focused on enabling clinicians to access good quality information aimed at the public which they can recommend to patients.

We have also produced Helping you to help your patients, which is a brief guide to evaluating information as well as recommendations for sites where you can find trusted information aimed at patients.

For day 3 of Health Information Week we are looking at the Behind the Headlines service.

Behind the Headlines is part of the main NHS UK site and is a really useful resource that provides an unbiased, evidence based view of health stories featuring in the news headlines.

For each item featured there is an overview of the story as well as a look at the accuracy of the reporting in the media. This is followed by an appraisal of the actual research the story is based on and some commentary about what the results mean and what we can draw from that.

Behind the Headlines is a particularly useful resource for clinicians who may be faced with patients who have seen an article in a daily newspaper and want to know what it means for them.

Tomorrow for Health Information Week we'll be looking at a web site that gives you access to a huge amount of information...

Mid Staffs report published

The final report of the public inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (the Francis Report) has now been published:

• Executive Summary
• Volume 1: Analysis of evidence and lessons learned (part 1)
• Volume 2: Analysis of evidence and lessons learned (part 2)
• Volume 3: Present and future, annexes
• Key facts and figures

You can also find more information on the Inquiry's web site.

Further reading

• The King's Fund - The Francis Inquiry: creating the right culture of care
• The Francis Inquiry - Storify

Reactions and responses

• Academy of Medical Royal Colleges
• Action Against Medical Accidents
• Age UK
• Alzheimer's Society
• British Medical Association
• British Prime Minister's Office
• Care Quality Commission
• Carers UK
• Centre for Innovation in Health Management
• Department of Health
• Foundation Trust Network
• General Medical Council
• General Pharmaceutical Council
• The Health Foundation
• Health Service Ombudsman
• Help the Hospices
• House of Commons Health Select Committee
• Institute of Healthcare Management
• The King's Fund
• Local Government Association
• Macmillan Cancer Care
• Marie Curie Cancer Care
• Monitor
• National Council for Palliative Care
• Nursing & Midwifery Council
• National Voices
• NAVCA
• NHS Alliance
• NHS Commissioning Board
• NHS Confederation
• The Nuffield Trust
• The Patients Association
• Reform
• Royal College of General Practioners
• Royal College of Midwives
• Royal College of Nursing
• Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
• Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
• Royal College of Physicians
• Royal College of Surgeons
• Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh 
• Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Queen's Nursing Institute
• Skills for Care
• TUC
• UK Faculty of Public Health
• Unite

New database of case histories launched

Documenting a patient's case history to inform physicians how the patient has been evaluated and the subsequent progression of his or her disease is arguably the oldest method of communicating medical evidence. Case reports typically include:

• Unreported or unusual side effects or adverse interactions involving medications
• Unexpected or unusual presentations of a disease
• New associations or variations in disease processes
• Presentations, diagnoses and/or management of new and emerging diseases
• An unexpected association between diseases or symptoms
• An unexpected event in the course of observing or treating a patient
• Findings that shed new light on the possible pathogenesis of a disease or an adverse effect
• Confirmatory or educational examples of any of the above types of case report

BioMed Central have launched the Cases Database that allows users to search peer-reviewed medical case reports from different sources (including the BMJ). The database is freely accessible, continously updated and currently contains over 11,600 cases from 100 different journals.

The database offers a straight forward search with the ability to filter by condition, symptom, intervention, patient demographics and more.The advance search option allows you to build your search strategy over multiple lines.

Key features of the database include:

•  Simple, semantically-enhanced and advanced search options
•  ‘My Cases Database’ – save searches and cases
•  Email alerts for new cases matching your interests
•  Download and export search results
•  Links to full text of case reports in peer-reviewed journals

Dr Foster Hospital Guide 2012

The Dr Foster 2012 Hospital Guide is now available, showing how all the acute trusts in England are rated.

Efficiency & Mortality scores for all acute trusts

 

Here are the reports on the trusts in Northamptonshire:

• Kettering General Hospital
• Northampton General Hospital
• BMI Three Shires (private)

You can read or download the whole report which covers the current state of the NHS, or just the My Hospital Guide Efficiency & Mortality 2012 

You can also search by trust, individual hospital or surgical procedure, and use your own postcode to identify organisations nearest to you.

Strangest health news stories of 2011

www.nhs.uk

Media coverage of health care related stories has often been variable in it's quality and 2011 proved to be no exception. 

NHS Choices have been through their Behind the Headlines service (Behind the Headlines provides an unbiased and evidence-based analysis of health stories that make the news) for 2011 and produced a list of the oddest and most innaccurately reported stories for the year

You can find the list on the NHS Choices site here. It makes for interesting reading...