Monday, 12 June 2023
The EBSCO mobile app - information on the move
Monday, 29 May 2023
The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub - now with extra Best Practice!
The NHS Knowledge and Library Hub connects NHS staff and learners seamlessly to a range of high quality knowledge and evidence resources all in one place.
The Hub is a single point of access for finding high quality evidence, and through it you can access databases, electronic journals, ebooks (such as the Royal Marsden Manual or the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines), evidence summary tools and more.
A new feature has been rolled out to the Hub so that whenever you do a search, if it matches a topic (or topics) in BMJ Best Practice, they will automatically feature at the top of your results.
This makes it even easier for you to quickly click through to a summary of high quality evidence on clinical topics.
BMJ Best Practice is an evidence-based point-of-care tool, structured around the patient consultation with advice on symptom evaluation, test ordering and treatment approach that also allows you to factor in co-morbidities. You can also download whole topics as a .PDF document.
You will need a Trust OpenAthens account to access BMJ Best Practice (and all the other fantastic resources on the Hub. If you don't have one of those you can register online here.
Please contact one of the libraries if you have any questions or need any help.
Tuesday, 22 March 2022
Bidding farewell to HDAS and the NICE Evidence Search
As you are probably aware, NICE have taken the decision to close down both the Healthcare Databases Advance Search (HDAS) and the Evidence Search services as of the 31st of March 2022.
HDAS has been a key fixture of database searching for many years, allowing access to all the available databases through a single interface.
For more on the closure of HDAS, NICE has a page which includes information on how to export your saved searches.
From the 1st of April users will need to search using the different interfaces provided by the database suppliers. All of the databases you could previously search in HDAS are easily accessible via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub with an OpenAthens password.
We have developed a user guide for each of the interfaces which you can find below:
- EBSCO interface for CINAHL
- OVID interface for Medline, Embase, Emcare, AMED, Social Policy & Practice, and HMIC
- ProQuest Interface for PsycInfo
We are also offering training to support users in making the transition to the new interfaces. Contact us if you would like to have some help with searching.
At the same time NICE are also closing their Evidence Search service. Sadly there is not a direct replacement for this, but the TRIP database is similar and well worth a look. You can also find some of the same content via the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub.
If you have any questions or need any help, please contact one of the libraries.
Sunday, 13 March 2022
BrowZine - an easy way to find and access online journals
The easiest way to access all of our journal holdings is via the BrowZine site. BrowZine is an easy to use service that will allow you to:
- Search our journal holdings for specific titles
- Browse our journal subscriptions to see what titles we hold in your specialty / areas of interest
- Browse table of contents of our journals and link straight through to the full text of most articles
- Northamptonshire Healthcare staff follow this link: https://browzine.com/libraries/1776/
- Northampton General Hospital staff follow this link: https://browzine.com/libraries/1775/
We have also created a Browzine user guide to help you get the most out of our electronic journals collection.
Sunday, 13 February 2022
A new way to find the evidence you need - the NHS Library and Knowledge Hub
Funded by Health Education England, the Hub is a single gateway and offers an intuitive search experience for quick searches and options for in-depth searches.
On it you can find:
- Thousands of electronic journals you can search or browse
- Basic, advanced and PICO searching options
- books and e-publications including OUP handbooks
- one-click access to full-text, request a copy or contact an NHS library
- clinical decision support tools such as BMJ Best Practice
- NICE pathways and guidelines
- databases like Medline, EMBASE and CINAHL
If you haven’t got an OpenAthens account you can register for online in just a few minutes.
Thursday, 4 July 2019
Health Information Week day 4: NICE Evidence Search #HIW2019

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.
You may be familiar with using the NICE Evidence Search site as a way to access good quality health information including guidelines, systematic reviews, articles and web sites, but you can also use it to find information aimed at the public by the use of a simple filter.
Go to the site and enter your search term
Tomorrow for the final in our series of blogs for Health Information Week, we'll be looking at a site with lots of leaflets and videos aimed at patients...
Wednesday, 4 April 2018
TRIP Pro access extended for NHS staff in England

If you aren't already familiar with it, TRIP is a UK clinical database designed to allow clinicians to find the best evidence to answer their clinical questions.
TRIP has an easy to use simple search, but TRIP Pro also offers two other ways to search in a more sophisticated way.
The advanced search option is very similar to the same feature in Google and allows you to combine search terms in different ways to find the information you want (including phrase searching, limiting by year and excluding words).
The PICO (Patient/Population Intervention Comparison Outcome) interface allows you easily break your search down into its most important elements which is really useful when answering a clinical question.
A great resource for finding high quality health information, TRIP is a great starting point for any literature search...
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Web site of the month: Clinical Key
Clinical Key is a great resource containing lots of full text content and a host of other features. Aimed at practising clinicians, it's a really useful way to access evidence based information.
If you are a junior doctor, consultant, nurse or AHP, Clinical Key will have something to offer you.
Everything is discoverable using a simple search engine that recognises medical terminology and offers quick short cuts to the information you need.
The search engine offers a number of simple filters to increase the accuracy of your results and you can also select the type of content you want (books, journal articles, guidelines, etc.). You can also browse for specific titles if you know what you are looking for.
Full text content includes
- 1,400 topic pages giving an overview of disease diagnosis, risk factors, treatment and more
- Over 600 electronic journals covering a broad range of specialities including the whole Lancet series
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here

You can access Clinical Key online at www.clinicalkey.com, (and the site adapts well if you are using a tablet or smartphone). There is also a free app that allows for easy use on the go for Android and iOS (Apple) devices.
To access Clinical Key (and the app) all you need is your OpenAthens password (register online here if you don't have one) to get started. If you register for an account on Clinical Key once you have logged in you will also be able to save your searches and content.
Thursday, 20 April 2017
Changes to Clinical Key
As well as these changes, Elsevier have added new electronic books and a journal to Clinical Key this month, including:
Journal
- Advances in Ophthalmology and Optometry (2016 to present);
- Berne & Levy Physiology (Koeppen, Bruce) 7th ed
- Diagnosis and Management of Adult Congenital Heart Disease (Gatzoulis, Michael) 3rd ed
- Endoscopic Diagnosis and Treatment in Prostate Pathology (Geavlete, Petrisor) 1st ed; New to CK
- Endoscopic Diagnosis and Treatment in Urethral Pathology (Geavlete, Petrisor) 1st ed; New to CK
- Endoscopic Diagnosis and Treatment in Urinary Bladder Pathology (Geavlete, Petrisor) 1st ed; New to CK
- Integrative Medicine (Rakel, David) 4th ed
- Operative Techniques: Knee Surgery (Miller, Mark) 2nd ed
- Percutaneous Surgery of the Upper Urinary Tract (Geavlete, Petrisor) 1st ed; New to CK
- Retrograde Ureteroscopy (Geavlete, Petrisor) 1st ed; New to CK
- Soft Tissue Augmentation: Procedures in Cosmetic Dermatology (Carruthers, Jean) 4th ed
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Tsokos, George) 1st ed; New to CK
- The Vaccine Book (Bloom, Barry) 2nd ed; New to CK
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
Access to TRIP Pro extended for 2017
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www.tripdatabase.com |
If you aren't already familiar with it, TRIP is a UK clinical database designed to allow clinicians to find the best evidence to answer their clinical questions.
TRIP has an easy to use simple search, but also offers two other ways to search in a more sophisticated way.
The advanced search option is very similar to the same feature in Google and allows you to combine search terms in different ways to find the information you want (including phrase searching, limiting by year and excluding words).
The PICO (Patient/Population Intervention Comparison Outcome) interface allows you easily break your search down into its most important elements which is really useful when answering a clinical question.
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
New books and journals added to Clinical Key
Elsevier have added new electronic books and journals to Clinical Key this month, including:
Journals
- Brazilian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology (2011 to present)
- Journal of Coloproctology (2013 to present)
- Journal of Optometry (2008 to present)
- Abdominal Imaging (Sahani, Dushyant) 2nd ed
- CT and MRI of the Whole Body (Haaga, John) 6th ed
- Dermatology: An Illustrated Colour Text (Gawkrodger, David) 6th ed
- Musculoskeletal Physical Examination: An Evidence-Based Approach (Malanga, Gerard) 2nd ed New to CK
- Neuroradiology: The Requisites (Nadgir, Rohini) 4th ed
Clinical Key is a fantastic, easy to use resource that contains huge amounts of full text content including:
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Monday, 1 August 2016
Web site of the month: Qwant - an interesting alternative to Google
When you search Qwant your results are presented in 3 columns tagged Web, News and Social (social media like Twitter). You can also filter your results to just include images or videos, or for shopping or music using the buttons on the left.
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www.qwant.com |
You are also able to create a free account and set lots of preferences, including having a list of favourite web sites which can act as a start page (these act like bookmarks and can be accessed from anywhere when you sign in with your account).
Qwant has other useful features including:
- Opening results in a new tab so you retain your list of search results
- Searching options like phrase or title searching, excluding search terms or limiting to a particular file type
- Qwant Lite has minimal graphics on display making it ideal for mobile devices and where there is a slower internet connection
- Qwick which easily allows you to search the content of a particular site through some clever shortcuts
- Boards which allows you to share content like pictures, videos, websites and even your own text
- Qwant Junior: a more heavily filtered search aimed at 6 - 13 year olds, with an education tab which displays results from recognised educational sources
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
New books and journal added to Clinical Key
Elsevier have added new electronic books and a journal to Clinical Key this month, including:
Journals
- Journal of Cancer Research and Practice (2014 to present)
- 2017 Intravenous Medications (Gahart, Betty) 33rd ed
- Brocklehurst’s Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology (Fillit, Howard) 8th ed
- Brown’s Atlas of Regional Anesthesia (Farag, Ehab) 5th ed
- Fetal and Neonatal Physiology (Polin, Richard) 5th ed
- Instant Work-ups: A Clinical Guide to Medicine (O’Connell, Theodore) 2nd ed
- Orthopedic Physical Assessment (Magee, David) 6th ed New to CK
- Weir & Abrahams’ Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy – formerly Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy (Spratt, Jonathan) 5th ed
- Weedon’s Skin Pathology Essentials (Johnston, Ronald) 2nd ed
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Monday, 20 June 2016
New books and journals added to Clinical Key
Elsevier have added new electronic books and journals to Clinical Key this month, including:
Journals
- Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases (2011 to present)
- Journal of Clinical & Translational Endocrinology (2014 to present)
- Journal of Clinical and Translational Endocrinology: Case Reports (2015 to present)
- Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice (2015 to present)
- Journal of Physiotherapy (2011 to present)
- Clinical Cardiac Pacing, Defibrillation and Resynchronization Therapy (Ellenbogen, Kenneth) 5th ed
- Ferri’s Clinical Advisor 2017 (Ferri, Fred)
- Green’s Operative Hand Surgery (Wolfe, Scott) 7th ed
- Immunology for Medical Students (Helbert, Matthew) 3rd ed
- Medical Physiology (Boron, Walter) 3rd ed
- Musculoskeletal Imaging: Case Review Series (Yu, Joseph) 3rd ed
- Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: Digestive System: Part I – Upper Digestive Tract (Reynolds, James) 2nd ed New to CK
- Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: Digestive System: Part II – Lower Digestive Tract (Reynolds, James) 2nd ed New to CK
- Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: Digestive System: Part III – Liver, Biliary Tract, and Pancreas (Reynolds, James) 2nd ed New to CK
- Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies (Gabbe, Steven) 7th ed
- Sabiston Textbook of Surgery (Townsend, Courtney) 20th ed
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Tuesday, 17 May 2016
Changes to Clinical Key
Elsevier have made some changes to the way the search filters on Clinical Key work.
Instead of appearing at the top of the page once you have searched, the filters now appear on the left hand side of the page (which will be more familiar to anyone who has used our catalogue, or indeed, shopped at Amazon).
The filters allow you to select full text journal articles, books, images etc. (or combinations there of) to find the information you want. You can also limit by study type, medical speciality or by date.
Journals
- Journal of Orthopaedic Science (1996 to present)
- Urology Case Reports (2013 to present)
- Dermatological Signs of Systemic Disease (Callen, Jeffrey) 5th ed;
- Emergency Radiology: The Requisites (Soto, Jorge) 2nd ed;
- Essential Surgical Procedures (Elsevier) 1st ed; New to CK; Henry’s Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods (McPherson, Richard) 23rd ed
- Neurology Secrets (Kass, Joseph S.) 6th ed;
- Ob/Gyn Secrets (Mularz, Amanda) 4th ed; New to CK;
- Video Atlas of Oculofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Korn, Bobby) 2nd ed
Clinical Key is a fantastic, easy to use resource that contains huge amounts of full text content including:
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
Web site of the month: Search Medica
The site was originally intended for use by doctors, but since its launch in 2006, it has been further developed to include results relevant to nurses, pharmacists medical and other health professionals.
Search Medica is a great alternative to starting with Google if you are looking for clinical information.
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Web site of the month: eTools.ch
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www.etools.ch/ |
The sites it uses for searching include Google, DuckDuck go (which we really like), Bing, Ask and Google Scholar, to name a few.
eTools allows you to set a number of preferences that are saved onto your device by a cookie (meaning no having to remember yet another log in). These include:
- main country to be searched
- language
- weighting to give to each of the 15 sources, from normal to very important. You can even select sources and exclude them from your search results completely.
- safe search filter
- a number of setting around how results are displayed
eTools also offers phrase search (using " "), AND, OR and NOT operators. You can also download your results as a .PDF file using the handy results tool.
Finally, eTools also offers a mobile friendly version, making it easy to use with a tablet or smartphone.
With it's handy customisable search features, eTools is a useful way of quickly searching a number of different sources to get a better spread of results, all from one place.
Saturday, 27 June 2015
New electronic books added to Clinical Key
- Goldman-Cecil Medicine (Goldman) 25th ed
- Andrews’ Diseases of the Skin (James) 12th ed
- Cardiovascular Intervention: A Companion to Braunwald’s Heart Disease (Bhatt) 1st ed; New to CK
- Clinical Dermatology (Habif) 6th ed
- The Eye: Basic Sciences in Practice (Forrester) 4th ed; New to CK;
- Ferri’s Clinical Advisor 2016 (Ferri) 1st ed
- Nolte’s The Human Brain (Vanderah) 7th ed
- Ophthalmology Secrets in Color (Gault) 4th ed
- Pediatric Secrets (Polin) 6th ed
- Rich’s Vascular Trauma (Rasmussen) 3rd ed; New to CK;
- Textbook of Pediatric Rheumatology (Petty) 7th ed
Clinical Key is a fantastic, easy to use resource that contains huge amounts of full text content including:
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here
Monday, 20 April 2015
Clinical Key has arrived.
Clinical Key is a versatile search engine backed by a huge amount of full text electronic content. It can be used at the point of care for fast overviews, or for more in-depth research or study, making it a valuable resource for consultants, doctors, students, nurses and other clinicians.
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www.clinicalkey.com |
You can also filter your search by types of content, books, journal articles, videos etc.
Search results will often lead you to a disease topic page where you will get an overview, including definition, diagnostics, differential diagnosis, imaging and treatment.
Clinical Key contains:
- 1,400 topic pages
- Over 600 electronic journals
- Over 1000 electronic books
- 850 First Consult monographs
- 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
- 300 + Procedures Consult videos
- 15,000 patient education handouts
- 2.2 million images
- You can find a full content list here

You will also be able to find the full text journal content from Clinical Key when you use HDAS to search the databases (e.g. Medline or the British Nursing Index) on the NICE Evidence Services site.
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Northamptonshire Health Charitable Fund |
Monday, 16 February 2015
Changes to the NICE Evidence Service site
The changes include:
- A new look for the front page
- More responsive design to get the best from whatever device you are using to access the site, be it desktop PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone
- Improved download speeds (especially for mobile devices)
- Relevant NICE guidelines and Clinical Knowledge Summary links displayed along side search results
- Systematic reviews will be included in the Evidence Search results
- A clear layout allowing easy access to the BNF, BNFC, Clinical Knowledge Summaries and journals and databases
- The journals and databases page has been redesigned (although not necessarily improved). The actual HDAS interface remains unchanged
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http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/ |