Information prescriptions expanded

The Department of Health is publicising information prescriptions and has said that an information accreditation scheme should be launched later this year.

Thirteen information prescriptions are now live on the NHS Choices website. These were promised in the 2006 white paper, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, as a way of directing patients to reliable sources of information about their condition, support and self-care.

In 2007-08, the DH recruited 20 pilot sites to provide evidence for IPs and to explore different models. An evaluation found that most used IT to generate the prescriptions, but their sophistication varied.

The information prescriptions now live are templates. GPs, healthcare professionals and patients can check a series of boxes to decide what information to include, with that information pulled up from a database. Free text notes can also be added.

Information prescriptions for a further five long-term conditions – schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, lung cancer, cervical cancer and epilepsy – are promised later this month.

The National Cancer Action Team is working with cancer networks and charities to develop an electronic tool to deliver information prescriptions to cancer patients. This is being piloted at 61 clinical sites and 16 information centres across England.

The DH says that, eventually, it wants information prescriptions to be available in a wide variety of formats, from paper that can be sent through the post to video that can be built into online diaries.

The information accreditation scheme will ‘quality mark’ organisations and is intended to reassure users about the quality of the information they put out.

The scheme was put out to tender last year, when the DH said it wanted the scheme to do for information systems what ISO did for business management systems.

The scheme is now being tested with 39 information providers from the public, commercial and voluntary sectors. The DH says it will be launched later this year.