NHS Evidence Health Information Resources Downtime

The NHS Evidence HIR site (formerly the National Library for Health) will be undergoing maintenance on the evening of Tuesday 21st December between 4pm and midnight and, as a result, may not be available for a short period during this time.

Library Christmas Opening

Reindeers
Originally uploaded by JesPir

Berrywood Hospital, Health Promotion Resources and the Richmond Library will be open between the 29th and 31st of December, and from Tuesday the 4th of January.

The Libraries at Francis Crick House and Isebrook Hospital will close on Friday the 24th of December and re-open on Tuesday the 4th. 

24 hour access will be available as usual to registered members throughout the Christmas period.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year and we look forward to seeing you in 2011.

Health Promotion Resources Reopened

The move from Princess Marina to our new premises at Westgate House is now completed. Crates have been unpacked, leaflets reshelved a new office set up, and we are now open for business.

Westgate House has free parking and is easy to get to, being situated just off the A45/Sixfields Roundabout near Sainsburys. Our new contact details are:
Health Promotion Resources
Ground Floor
Westgate House 2
21 Gambrel Road
Westgate Industrial Estate,
Northampton NN5 5BB
Tel: 01604 321516
Fax: 01604 685465
Email: hpresources@northants.nhs.uk

Click here to see a map of this location

Health Promotion Resources Move Update

The first part of the move of the Health Promotion Resources Service has gone very well this week. We have now packed up all our resources, posters and leaflets into crates in anticipation of the move next week.

Most of our shelving has already been taken down and is going to be moved on Monday  to our new premises and will be put up again on Tuesday.

The big move takes place on Wednesday and we'll spend the rest of the day and Thursday unpacking. If everything goes to plan we will be open for business again at our new location, Westgate House, on Friday the 17th of December.

Health Promotion Resources Move

As previously announced, our Health Promotion Resources Service is moving from it's current location at  Princess Marina Hospital to a new premises. 

The service will shut on Monday the 6th of December to enable us to pack all our resources, leaflets and others materials in preparation for the move the following week. We will reopen on Friday the 17th of December and our new contact details will be:

Health Promotion Resources

Westgate House 2,

21 Gambrel Road,

Westgate Industrial Estate,

Northampton, NN5 5BB

Tel: 01604 321516 and fax 01604 685465

Email: hpresources@northants.nhs.uk

Click here to see a map of this location

During this time we will be unable to supply any leaflets or resources.

For anyone wishing to return resources you currently have out on loan during this closed period, you can do so at the Berrywood, Isebrook, and Richmond Libraries.

We apologise to all of our users for any inconvenience this may cause.

Berrywood Library Open Day Wednesday December 15th, 10am-4pm

Have you visited Berrywood Hospital staff library yet?

If not, on Wednesday December 15th, you have the perfect excuse – the Library is holding an open day so staff can come and see for themselves the services we offer.

We’re very easy to find - on the first floor in the main building, just above Reception and the café.

Our friendly, professional staff will be on hand to talk about the training we provide in searching online for evidence-based research, assisting with Athens registration, using the library catalogue (online or onsite), and will be giving tours of our collections of books and journals – as well as our public computers and daily newspapers!

Come and say hello, register for membership (if you haven’t already) and have a mince pie with us.

Please contact us if you require directions or further details: berrywoodlibrary@northants.nhs.uk or 01604 682650.

Latest Weather & Traffic News Now Available

snow cat
Originally uploaded by
Jamie McClement

Planning a journey? Worried about the snow? If you need the latest news and information on traffic, weather, delays, holdups and roadworks you can find it all in one place on the Travel, Transport & Weather tab of our netvibes site.

There are also planners to produce  routes and maps to make your journey easier.

If you aren't travelling by car, you will also find links to public transport information including local bus & coach services, trains, the tube and even airports.

New Guide to Netvibes Now Available

What does netvibes do? It allows us to bring together information from lots of different web sites and put it all in one place. It provides all our users with a single dashboard showing the last health news, policy, comment, publications and events, without having to go to lots of different places to find the information. 

Our site covers topics such as the NHS White Paper, mental health, primary care, health care policy and management, public health, and information management & technology. You will find continually updating news feeds from the NHS, NICE, the DoH, Government, CQC, Royal Colleges, King's Fund, voluntary organisations, clinical journals, the BBC, newspapers, weather, travel and transport news (covering local and national items), links to useful health related information and much more.

You can find it here: www.netvibes.com/northantspslibraries

Although its very easy to use, netvibes can appear a little daunting at first, so we've created a new guide on how to get the best from it. The guide will show you how the site works, how to find the information you need and even how to share it with friends and colleagues.  

Of course, you can always contact us if you have any questions about netvibes, or any of the other services we provide...

Advanced Warning: Health Promotion Resources is Moving

With the closure of the Princess Marina Hospital site, the Health Promotion Resources Service will also be relocating.

We are going to be moving to our new (temporary) premises at Westgate House, Gambrel Road, Northampton (about a mile away from our present location).

Inevitably there is going to be some disruption whilst we pack all of our leaflets and resources and move them, but we will endeavour to keep this to an absolute minimum.

The move is scheduled to take place in mid December, but we will update both this Blog and the Library web site with more information as soon as we have it.

In the mean time if you have any questions about the move you can email us or call on 01604 595267.

New Critical Appraisal Course for 2011

Do you need help navigating your way through published research. Need guidance on how to identify good quality research evidence? We can help!
The Library Service is launching an introductory critical appraisal course starting in January 2011 which covers the basics of assessing the quality of research evidence. It looks at the different types of research studies you are most likely to come across, and will give you an introduction to some of the statistical terminology most commonly used in biomedical research such as "number needed to treat" and "confidence intervals".
The course also takes you through a checklist for critically appraising a randomised controlled trial.
No prior knowledge of critical appraisal or statistical techniques is required.
To find out more and see the dates and venues for 2011 see our web site

It's fixed!

Our swipe card system has now been repaired and out of hours access to the Richmond Library for our registered members has been restored.

The Richmond Library will be closed the weekend of the 13th and 14th of November

Due to a technical problem with our swipe card access system, the Richmond Library at Northampton General Hospital will not be available for out of hours use.  The library will shut at 5 pm on Friday the 12th and reopen at 9 am on Monday the 14th.

An engineer will be coming out on Monday the 14th and we anticipate our twenty four hour access should be restored the same day.

In the mean time if you need access to the library service over the weekend, the library at Berrywood Hospital will still be open to registered users as normal (although stock at Berrywood has a different focus).

We apologise for any inconvience caused and we hope to restore out of hours access as soon as possible.