Saturday, 16 March 2013

New Evidence Updates

NHS Evidence has published two new evidence updates.

Common mental disorders offers a summary of new clinical evidence in relation to NICE Guideline 123 ‘Common mental health disorders: identification and pathways to care’

Hypertension reviews the evidence is relation to clinical guideline 127 ‘Clinical management of primary hypertension in adults’

Evidence Updates do not replace current accredited guidance and do not provide formal recommendations, but they do highlight new evidence that health and social care professionals may wish to consider alongside current guidance.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

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.

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

Fags for swag! No Smoking Day Wednesday 13th of March

No Smoking Day has a new campaign this year - swap fags for swag. The campaign looks at what smokers can gain by giving up. As well as the health benefits, smokers can save a fortune on the ever increasing cost of tobacco.

This year smokers are being encouraged to focus on what they could afford to buy if they were to quit. A 20 a day smoker by giving up for a day  would save £7, a week £49, a month £210 and by quitting for a year, a massive £2,555. 

The WeQuit site has lots of information on it for those who decide to stop smoking, including this handy savings calculator. Just input the number of cigarettes you smoke per day or per week and see how much you could save.



Health professionals can find more information about the campaign, including resources like images, tips on No Smoking Day events, leaflets & posters, and much more on the National No Smoking Day site

You can also find local information on the NHFT web site and the NHS Northampton & Milton-Keynes Goodbye Smoke page, including locally available support services and the very contemporary Fags4Swag NHS Harlem Shake video.



Thursday, 7 March 2013

Updated study shows the value of medical libraries

A study published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association shows the impact medical libraries can have on patient care. 

"The value of library and information services in patient care"* reported that 3/4s of 16,122 survey respondents (a variety of clinicians) said that as a result of using information from a library they had definitely or probably changed aspects of patient care as a result.

The changes reported included patient advice (48%), diagnosis (25%), choices of drugs or other treatment (33% and 31%). 95% said the information resulted in a better clinical decision.

The survey also showed that the use of libraries allowed clinicians to avoid adverse events including additional tests (19%), misdiagnosis (13%), adverse drug reactions or medication errors (13% and 12%) and patient mortality (6%).

Clinicians also commented on the value of having access to professional librarians who can assist with patient  care, either through the provision of evidence based literature searches, or through training in the most effective use of information resources.

* Marshall, J.G. Sollenberger,  S. Easterby-Gannett, L.K. et al, (2013) The Value of Library and Information Services in Patient Care: Results from a Multisite Study, Journal of the Medical Library Association 101(1) 38-46.  Available from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543128/

Friday, 1 March 2013

Web site of the month: trial of Clinicalskills.Net - your views needed

For the whole of March we are having a trial of Clinicalskills.Net and would really value your feedback.

Clinicalskills.Net is an on-line service that holds sets of illustrated clinical skills guidelines. It is designed to  help you understand the principles of a particular skill.

The information about best practice for over 160 procedures is delivered in a highly accessible format using clear graphics supported by text and references. Because clinicalskills.net is highly illustrated, it is very user friendly. It can also help to facilitate study for those whose first language is not English and those returning to work after a break.

All procedures featured are evidence-based with numerous click-through links to valuable national guidance and other published papers.

Clincalskills.Net could be of value for nurses, HCAs, AHPs, medical students, junior doctors, educators and more.

You can find the log in details for the site at any of our libraries. Alternatively, if you have access to the Northamptonshire Healthcare or Northampton General Hospital  Intranet sites (the Hub and the Street), you can find the details on our pages there.

Thursday, 28 February 2013

Book sale starts Monday the 4th of March

We are having a sale of recently withdrawn stock at the Richmond and Berrywood libraries starting on Monday the 4th of March.  On offer will be a variety of stock, mostly previous editions of text books and other items covering lots of different disciplines. 

book sale loot
Book Sale Loot by Ginnerobot on Flickr
At £2 each or 3 for £5, why not come in and bag yourself a bargain? Everything must go!

Friday, 22 February 2013

Latest evidence updates from NICE

Eyes on Evidence is a free monthly e-bulletin from NHS Evidence which covers significant new evidence as it emerges, with an explanation about what it means for current practice.

The articles also contain links to relevant articles, NHS Evidence and NICE guidance.

In the February issue you can find:
  • Weight management in pregnancy
    A systematic review and meta-analysis shows weight management interventions in pregnancy are effective in reducing maternal weight gain without any adverse risk to the unborn child, but weight reduction is modest. 
  • Physiotherapy treatment for Parkinson's Disease
    A systematic review shows that physiotherapy has benefits for people with Parkinson's disease across a range of functions. How and when physiotherapy should be delivered in this patient group is still unclear and there is insufficient evidence to suggest that any one method of physiotherapy is more effective than another.
  • Prevention of ventilator associated pneumonia with oral antiseptics
    A systematic review shows a beneficial effect of oral antiseptic use in the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Questions remain on the frequency and technique of administration. 
  • Benzodiazepines and the risk of dementia
    An observational study suggests that use of an array of hypnotics and anxiolytics (mainly benzodiazepines and 'Z drugs') are associated with an increased risk of dementia.
  • Citalopram for the treatment of depression
    A systematic review confirms previous evidence and guidance that citalopram is a suitable first-choice drug option for the acute treatment of moderate to severe depression in terms of efficacy and tolerability.
  • Integrated whole system services for people with dementia
  • Improving quality and the patient experience – a children and young people cancer survivorship initiative 

Tuesday, 19 February 2013

Want to help us shop for books?

We have a new selection of books on approval in stock at the Richmond and Berrywood libraries and would like your help in selecting which ones we should buy for our collections.

The current titles available cover topics such as CBT, psychology, general nursing, occupational therapy, mental health, cardiovascular medicine, diabetes, palliative care, patient safety and more. You can find the full list on our web site.

These titles will be available to view until Friday the 28th of March. We are also happy to have recommendations for items to purchase at any time!

You can find all the titles we have recently added to our collections here and all our stock via the library catalogue.

Friday, 15 February 2013

Film - The Voice of Dementia

The 14 minute film, Voice of Dementia shows people with dementia talking about their lives, their diagnosis and the importance of being listed to. It challenges the notion that people who receive this diagnosis are unable to have a say about their lives, and the services that they receive.

The film was a collaborative production between Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust and the Alzheimer's Society Sheffield.


The Voice of Dementia from CLAHRC SY Core Team on Vimeo.

Tuesday, 12 February 2013

NICE evidence summaries for unlicensed/off label and new medicines

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence have just launched two new products to help with medicines management and prescribing.

Evidence summaries: unlicensed/off-label medicines review the best available evidence for selected unlicensed and off-label medicines where there are no clinically appropriate licensed alternatives.
Evidence summaries: new medicines are provided to help make informed decisions and aid local planning on the introduction of key new medicines or existing medicines with new indications or a new formulation. The topics selected are medicines that have recently gone into the UK market, or may be marketed in the UK in the next 6-12 months.
They both offer quality-assured summaries of the best available evidence for selected  medicines. The strengths and weaknesses of the relevant evidence are critically reviewed, but the summaries do not constitute formal NICE guidance.

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

Mid Staffs report published

The final report of the public inquiry into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust (the Francis Report) has now been published:
You can also find more information on the Inquiry's web site.

Further reading
Reactions and responses

Friday, 1 February 2013

Web site of the month: Health Knowledge

Health Knowledge was created for people working in public health, but contains high quality learning resources that are of use to the wider health care audience.

The site hosts a Public Health Textbook which covers all relevant public health skills and competencies and is free to access (as are all the things on Health Knowledge).

You will also find a number of e-learning resources covering epidemiology, health information and statistical methods. Each comes with a pre-course assessment, learning materials and ends with a final assessment which is graded and can be printed off for recording against CPD.


As well as the e-learning content there is a section of interactive learning material which includes presentations with an audio element and other material such as videos and workbooks that walks users through each subject. Areas covered in this section include:


A highlight is the material on critical appraisal called Finding and Appraising the Evidence. These six modules provide a general introduction to critical appraisal before taking you through the process of how to find evidence, and then going on to look at different types of research, such as randomised control trials and finishing with how to make sense of the evidence, which looks at statistics and outcome measures.

Each section also ends with a quiz to test your learning and there are links to further resources. This is an excellent introduction to a complex topic and is highly recommended.