Website of the Department of Health

… services give all people with long-term health and social care needs and their carers an ‘information prescription’. The information prescription will be given to people using services and their carers by health and social care professionals (for example GPs, social care workers and district nurses) to signpost people to further information and advice to help them take care of their own condition. 

Information prescriptions will direct people to relevant and personal sources of information about services and treatments that they will need at key points in their care journey, for example, at  diagnosis, at different stages of their treatment, for care planning and when they are discharged from hospital.   They will signpost  anyone with a long term condition information on where to get advice and support, how to make contact with others with a similar condition and important national and local information other than  health and social care – like information about benefits.

Information prescriptions are being piloted in twenty sites across England from January 2007. These pilots will last for a year, and will help to develop and test information prescriptions, informing the implementation of information prescriptions throughout the country. A complete list of pilot sites is attached below, and further information can be found at this weblink: