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Information prescriptions

Information prescriptions aim to guide people with long-term conditions or care needs, and their carers, to relevant and reliable sources of information to enable them to feel more in control and better able to manage their condition and maintain their independence.

NHS Constitution

The NHS Constitution, published in January 2009, makes the provision of patient information a right and is backed up by legislation for the first time:

‘The NHS commits to offer you easily accessible, reliable and relevant information to enable you to participate fully in your own healthcare decisions and to support you in making choices’
‘You have a right to make choices about your NHS care and to information to support these choices.  The options available to you will develop over time and depend on your individual needs.’
 (Section 2a of the NHS Constitution)

Information prescriptions can contribute to the commitments of the NHS Constitution and represent good practice for supporting individual rights.  They provide a route for helping individuals access information to feel empowered and more able to participate fully in decisions about their care. They are also specifically mentioned in the NHS Constitution Handbook:

Information prescriptions, which can be found on NHS Choices, will help people to access relevant information about their long-term condition.
 (Page 51, NHS Constitution)

The NHS is developing information prescriptions for people with long-term conditions to help clinicians signpost people to the right information at the right time.
(Page 56, NHS Constitution)

What is an information prescription?

Information prescriptions point people to sources of information about their health and care – for example information about conditions and treatments, care services, benefits, and support groups. They can include addresses, telephone numbers and website addresses that people may find helpful and where they can go to find out more. Information prescriptions are available nationally on NHS Choices and health and social care professionals (for example GPs, social workers and district nurses) may provide people with them.

Pilots were conducted during 2007-8 and have informed the design and delivery of information prescriptions, and provided evidence of their effectiveness and their impact on the public, professionals and organisations.

Implementation

Health and social care organisations may now want to consider how information prescriptions can assist their processes for providing care plans, information and choice.  Plans for implementing information prescriptions can be developed using the learning from the piloting programme.

There is an online resource to help organisations implement, and this outlines the different models of delivery through case studies and practical templates from the 20 pilot sites. To visit the resource, click on the link on the right under the related links section.

The NHS Choices website provides national support for professionals and self-prescribing. Information prescriptions can be created and printed as part of the NHS Guides series (please see the link on the right). Currently, information prescriptions are available via NHS Choices for 13 of the most common long-term conditions including asthma, stroke, diabetes, dementia, depression, coronary heart disease. More conditions will be added during 2009.

Ultimately, all sources of information on information prescriptions will be quality assured through the information accreditation scheme.

Hard copy support materials

Many support documents can be downloaded from the information prescriptions online resource. However, hard copies of support materials may be ordered free of charge (see our ‘Ordering publications’ page), using these product codes:

Considering implementation:
Information prescriptions summary of final report (see the Reports section below for downloadable pdf version): 288510
Information prescriptions online resource pack overview document (can be downloaded in section below): 288509

Promotional materials:

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