Journal Watch

Journal Watch is a light-hearted review of the leading medical journals as seen from a GP's perspective. It is written by Dr Richard Lehman and is updated weekly. This week's instalment looks at topics such as the effects of vitamins on cardiovascular disease; arsenic and its link with type 2 diabetes; clinical leadership at NICE and drug pricing levels; a study of vitamin D levels in women with hip fractures and an argument for screening for haemochromatosis.
Read it at: http://www.primarycare.ox.ac.uk/journalwatch

INFOcus Learning Portal for the North West NHS

This learning portal is for NHS staff in the North West of England. It provides access to a range of e-learning opportunities covering project management, programme management and IT service management. A range of free e-learning courses are available via the portal. Following the completion of the e-learning courses, there would be opportunities to sit the associated industry-recognised exams.

The portal is available here: www.ilxportal.com/infocus/

National electronic Library for Medicines is relaunched!

The National electronic Library for Medicines (NeLM) is the largest medicines information portal for healthcare professionals in the NHS. The site has news, evidence-based reviews on drugs and drug therapy and health promotion material. It also provides a facility for sharing practice.
The NeLM has been relaunched with new software. This version is the first in a series of transformations as the site is redeveloped to provide a comprehensive medicines knowledge-base.
NHS staff with NHS e-mail addresses can register to receive the NeLM Newsletter, a daily e-mail update.
Find it at http://www.nelm.nhs.uk/en/

The NHS Workforce Review Team

A new website launched on the 18th August by the NHS Workforce Review Team (WRT). This is a group of dedicated healthcare workforce planners who provide objective modelling, analysis and evidence-based recommendations in order to enable patient-centred and clinically driven strategic decision making across the healthcare workforce. On the site you can find their workforce summaries and models for each specialty and profession, details of their publications and project work, more information about WRT and links to other organisations, as well as the latest news that will be of interest to workforce planners.

Find it at http://www.wrt.nhs.uk/

August 2008

James has not forgotten us.

A summer delight

Keeping up to date

This can always be difficult. One way that can help you is to look at our news feeds for the following subject areas. (As a slight Escher moment you will see our sister Library Newsletter appearing on the feeds!) These, along with some not included here, can also be found on our Specialty Guides in the Knowledge Zone

Anaesthetics, critical and emergency care news
Cancer news
Cardiology news
ENT news
Dermatology news
Gastroenterology news
Haematology news
Medicine for older people news
Mental Health news
Neurology news
Nursing news
Nutritional
Obs and gynae news
Ophthalmology news
Paediatrics news
Palliative care news
Pathology news
Pharmacy news
Physio and OT news
Public Health news
Radiology news
Respiratory news
Rheumatology news
surgery news
Trauma and Orthopaedic news
Urology and Nephrology news

The final report of Lord Darzi's NHS Next Stage Review

It responds to the 10 SHA strategic visions and sets out a vision for an NHS with quality at its heart. It ensures that health care will be personalised and fair, include the most effective treatments within a safe system, and help patients to stay healthy.

View here the DH site

View here a comprehensive summary produced by Newham NHS University Hospital Library Service

Health information for families...

Great Ormond Street Hospital have a website of health information at http://www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk/

The site is split into info on children of different ages :

• 4 to 6,
• 7 to 11
• and 12 to 18.
• Plus there's a section for families

Info for Dads @ Dad.info

Here's a website of health information aimed at a particular section of the public : Dads!

http://www.dad.info/health

The website includes health information about babies and children, new mums and dads. Indeed the site is broader than just health issues, covering a whole range of social and cultural ideas for bringing up kids, all from the male perspective.

Compare hospitals, and find patient opinion...

The Healthcare Commission have improved their Heart Surgery section. See http://heartsurgery.healthcarecommission.org.uk/

NHS Choices also allows the public to compare hospitals for a range of treatments. See http://www.nhs.uk/scorecard/Pages/ScorecardWelcome.aspx

And finally, try Patient Opinion, where patients can make their own comments on the care they've received. See http://www.patientopinion.org.uk/

Click Stockport PCTs or Stockport Foundation Trust's for comments .

Going abroad on holiday? Part 1

Have a look at TravelTurtle

This website tells you everything you need to know about health in the country you're going to.

Find the TravelTurtle here: http://www.travelturtle.co.uk/

Going abroad on holiday? Part 2

HealthMap is ingenious.

Based on media stories from a range of sources, disease alerts are automatically placed on a map.

So it's useful for a global view of disease outbreaks.

But you can also zoom in to a particular country, or to limit the view to a particular disease.

So you could use it to track the latest news on outbreaks of C.diff and MRSA in the UK. It's easy to get through to the original news stories in just a couple of clicks.

Try out HealthMap here: http://www.healthmap.org/en

Map of Medicine Healthguides

The Map of Medicine is an online resource which started life at University College London and The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in 2001. The Map provides clinicians with a graphical, easy-to-follow pathway for managing conditions. The Map starts from the beginning, from investigationg and diagnosis in primary care, but then reaches through into secondary care, giving a complete overview of a topic.

The Map has now spread out across England and Wales, and can be customised at Trust level to take into account local guidelines and pathways.

The Map isn't yet up and running in Stockport, but a range of the topics are publically available.

See the publically accessible Maps, here:

http://healthguides.mapofmedicine.com/

And read more about the Map of Medicine here:

http://mapofmedicine.com/

New source for research results

The passing of a law in the US is going to have a massive impact on the way that clinical trial results are disseminated.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Amendments Act 2007 mandates the public disclosure of trial results on the clinicaltrials.gov website within a year of completion.

The law will have far reaching consequences as it applies to all trials 'if the products concerned need approval by the FDA.' That means it doesn't matter who sponsors the trial, or where it's conducted : if the product is on the radar of the FDA, which reglates medicines in the USA, the responsible parties risk a fine of $10,000 for non-compliance.

The law comes into effect in September 2008.

For more on the FDA Amendments Act, see:
Editorial in the BMJ Use your NHS Athens
Editorial in PLoS Medicine

For more on trial resgistration, see
Ottawa statement on trial registration

Teenage Pregnancy Maps

The East Midlands Public Health Observatory (EMPHO) has produced a series of interactive maps of teenage pregnancy rates of all local authorities in England.

You can see the maps online here:
http://www.empho.org.uk/THEMES/teenagepregnancy/tp11.aspx

You may need to download extra software to view the maps, but this is available on the above site.

The EMPHO is one of a series of Public Health Observatories which contain a wealth of useful information, inluding:
Health Profiles
Toolkits
NW PHO
etc.

Journals Survey

The Library would like to hear your views!


The Library is now considering which journals to purchase for 2009. Within our budget it's impossible to meet everybody’s requirements but we would like to hear from you which titles would be of most benefit to you and your colleagues.


Complete the journals survey to share your views.

The survey will close on August 8th.

Schizophrenia Information

A new patient leaflet has been produced by the Royal College of Psychiatrists on Schizophrenia - key facts. Click here to view. Further information on schizophrenia and other mental health issues are to be found with links to the left of the leaflet

July 2008

From James, a final beautiful photograph to see us through the summer

The future of the NHS

Lord Darzi's report on the future of the NHS is now published.


See the summary or full report here.

And published alongside it, see:

National Health Service Constitution

A high quality workforce: NHS Next Stage review

To keep up to date with new Department of Health publications, see their Publications page: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/index.htm

And to keep up on the debate on the future of the NHS, click here for responses to the Darzi Report from the BMA, King's Fund, and many more.

NHS Waiting Times

The Department of Health and the Statistics Authority have released the latest figures on waiting times for the NHS in England.

The key points, plus the full data, are available on the DH website here.

Statistics by Trust are available, so it's possible to find out how Stockport is doing compared to other Trusts, and compared to the avaerage in England.

Looking for evidence?

There are lots of places where you could do a quick search for evidence. But these are some of the best options:

UpToDate is only available on the hospital network. But it's easy to use, quick to search, and packed with reliable summaries of the evidence that can be found, read and digested in seconds.

DynaMed is available free, with no password to remember, from anywhere in the UK. Similarly, it's easy to use, and summarises the evidence on thousands of topics so that you can find it in a jiffy.

TripDatabase is a great resource that searches for evidence from dozens of sources: Medline, Guidelines, electronic textbooks, evidence synopses, top clinical journals and more. And it's free.

And finally, here a new one I've just come accross:

SumSearch also searches accross a number of sources. It's free, and will help you to develop your search strategy by making suggestions as you type.

Cervical cancer vaccine - where's the evidence?

The Department of Health has announced a vaccination programme for the human papillomavirus, which is due to start in September. The programme will use the Cervarix vaccine, which is made by GlaxoSmithKline, but there is upset that an alternative, Sanofi Pasteur’s Gardasil, was not chosen, eg. BMJ News and Rapid Responses.

So where could we find out more about these two products. You could try these:

The NLH Women's Health Specialist Library

Quick search in PubMed

The British National Formulary (BNF)

Disease Mongering and Drug Promotion

'Disease mongering is the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness and grows the markets for those who sell and deliver treatments.'
Moynihan (2006)

To read more on disease mongering, and action being taking against it see:

Moynihan et al. (2008)

PLoS Medicine Theme Issue (2006)

Healthy Skepticism

National Dementia Strategy

A national strategy for the diagnosis and treatment of dementia will be published in October 2008.

The Department of Health is currently undertaking a public consultation on the plan.

For more information, see the Department of Health website : http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/SocialCare/Deliveringadultsocialcare/Olderpeople/NationalDementiaStrategy/index.htm

New NICE Guidelines, June 2008

Breast cancer (advanced & metastatic) - bevacizumab (terminated appraisal)


Colorectal cancer (metastatic) - cetuximab (terminated appraisal)



Glioma (recurrent) - carmustine implants (terminated appraisal)



Head and neck cancer - cetuximab



Implantation of multifocal (non-accommodative) intraocular lenses during cataract surgery



Lumbar infusion test for the investigation of normal pressure hydrocephalus


Lung cancer (non-small-cell) - bevacizumab (terminated appraisal)


Obesity - rimonabant



Psoriasis - adalimumab


Stent insertion for bleeding oesophageal varices



Surgical repair of vaginal wall prolapse using mesh



Transcatheter aortic valve implantation for aortic stenosis

NHS Reforms report from the Audit Commission

Since 2000 the NHS has been undergoing dramatic market-style reforms. Eight years on, is there evidence of improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of the NHS? The Audit Commission has recently published a report on these reforms.

The report is availble to read or download online here.

The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone.

PsycBITE

PsycBITE is a database that catalogues evidence for the treatment of psychological problems and issues occurring as a consequence of acquired brain impairment (ABI).

The database is free to access, and rates the studies it includes by methodological quality, making it easy to decide what to trust.

PsycBITE is compiled by the Royal Rehabilitation Centre, Sydney, Australia.

Search the database yourself here : http://www.psycbite.com/

BMJ Case Reports

The BMJ are soon to launch a new service : BMJ Case Reports

The humble case report is often overlooked as a weak form of evidence, but they are frequently the only form of evidence available. BMJ Case Reports are currently looking for case reports to be submitted.

Read more about the project, and submit your reports, here : http://casereports.bmj.com/

Annual Evidence Updates from the NLH

Annual Evidence Update on Multiple Sclerosis: An update of the evidence on this topic from the NLH Neurological Conditions Specialist Library

Annual Evidence Update on Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD): The Age Related Macular Degeneration Annual Evidence Update 2008 presents a collection of evidence that has emerged in the past 12 months since the 2007 National Knowledge Week (NKW)

National Knowledge Week on Proteinuria and the Use of eGFR: An update of the evidence on this topic from the NLH Kidney Diseases Specialist Library

National Knowledge Week on Homeopathy: An update of the evidence on this topic from the NLH Complementary & Alternative Medicine Specialist Library

Developing leaders to improve patient care

The Health Foundation believes that encouraging better leadership from clinicians and managers is one of the most important ways to improve the quality of healthcare in the UK.

Developing leaders to improve patient care explains what we have learnt about leadership:

* leaders are key to improving patient care
* leaders need emotional intelligence
* leaders should learn in multidisciplinary teams
* leaders are required throughout an organisation
* leaders need support from their colleagues and their organisation
* careful recruitment to leadership schemes is important.

To find out more about the Health Foundation and its leadership scheme, click here