New NHS information sources unveiled

Two new NHS websites designed to improve information for patients have been unveiled.

NHS Choices, to be launched this summer, will offer general information with the aim of making “authoritative and high quality information very much simpler for patients, the public and health professionals to use.”

A much more specific internet service offering information about congenital heart disease in children went live last week.

NHS Choices was announced in letter to professional executive committee chairs from Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, chair of the clinical advisory group for the new service.

He wrote: “NHS Choices will break new ground using interactive and multi-media technology to reach the vast majority of patients, not just those who are most internet-aware.”

A note accompanying the letter explains: “Material will be presented in a variety of formats, including up-t-date and easy-to-use printable guides to services, which will include local details. They can be printed off in the GP surgery, other healthcare sites, or public libraries.

“Other formats will include televisual material which can be burned to a DVD or audio programmes for individuals or for local broadcast. This will extend the reach of the information beyond those familiar with computers or the internet. It will enable new, creative approaches to tackling health inequalities.”

Some of the initial features of NHS Choices are: an information resource about health healthcare including authoritative comparative data on the standards and availability of hospital services; profiles and searchable directories of hospital services, detailed guides to living with long term conditions; multimedia guides to common procedures and an opportunity for patients to make comments on hospital services.

The site about congenital heart disease has been created by the NHS Information Centre for health and social care to give the parents and carers of children affected information to help them make important decisions about their child’s treatment.

Among the information it provides are profiles of every congenital heart disease centre in the UK, including the number and range of procedures they carry out and survival rates for the most common types of treatment. It does not profile individual surgeons.

The new site has been launched six years after the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry reported on excessive death rates in children undergoing complex heart surgery in Bristol in the l980s and early 1990s. The inquiry report highlighted the lack of co-ordinated information on clinical performance.