GPs and other health professionals will be able to access easy-to-read patient information from their desk computers thanks to a new partnership between NHS Direct and the Clinical Knowledge Summaries Service (CKS).

As the NHS continues to modernise its approach to accessing and delivering health information to clinicians and patients, this innovative new partnership, the first of its kind in the NHS, means CKS, the web-based, NHS funded service, will enable clinicians to make evidence based decisions about health and healthcare from their desk.

The service is part of the National Library for health (NLH) and principally utilises secondary research, evidence from standard NHS resources such as NICE (National Institute for Health Clinical Excellence) and a range of peer-reviewed systematic reviews e.g. Cochrane (source: CKS web site 2007).

Until now patient information on the web site has been provided by an external supplier and paid for by the Department of Health. The current provider's contract expires at the end of March 2007 and NHS Direct Online was approached in late February with the view to providing the patient information content to CKS.

Sir Muir Gray, NHS Chief Knowledge Officer acknowledges the benefits that this pioneering new partnership between the two services will bring to patients and healthcare professionals; "Two NHS organisations such as NHS Direct and the CKS, which come together to share knowledge and expertise is a realisation of a long ambition and I'm delighted that it is now happening."

NHS Direct Online, already a successful website providing high quality health information and advice will provide content to CKS from its health encyclopaedia and common health questions with a view to expand on this in the future. Helen Young, Clinical Director for NHS Direct says;

"Our Online service is already extremely popular with patients, receiving 1.5 million visits every month and this is an excellent opportunity for us to make our high quality, health information available to even more people via their health professional."

-- NHS Direct is at the forefront of 24 hour health care delivering telephone and e-health information services day and night direct to the public

-- NHS Direct provides health information and advice 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

-- NHS Direct handles around 6.5 million telephone calls a year

-- The NHS Direct website nhsdirect.nhs attracts more than 1.5 million visits each month

-- NHS Direct on Freeview was launched just before Christmas 2006 and together with the service on Sky Digital means that over 14 million households have access to hundreds of pages packed with health information. These include:

-- Answers to common health questions,

-- Advice on healthy living such as: eating well, exercise and giving up smoking

-- Information about NHS Services

-- Features on long-term health conditions

-- News on current health issues

-- NHS Direct is accessed on Freeview by going to channel 108.

-- NHS Direct Interactive on Sky Digital TV includes 3000 pages of information on 500 health topics.

-- NHS Direct Interactive on Sky Digital is accessed by pressing the interactive button on the Sky Digital remote control, scrolling down to NHS Direct Interactive and pressing Select.

nhsdirect.nhs