New Project Targets Health Info For All

A grant of nearly £30,000 from the British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme, combined with contributions totaling over £62,000 from a range of partners, will be spent on creating a pilot to make high quality information about conventional and complementary medicine more readily accessible to the general public.

Provisionally titled 'Health Info 4 U', the project will create access to much of the journal-based and other information on health issues currently available to people in the health care professions, but not the general public. Tapping into the information held by the British Nursing Index (BNI), the Allied and Complementary MEDicine Database (AMED), and other sources that will ultimately provide the expert patient, their advocates and representatives with the health literature they require.

Partners on the project include Bournemouth University, the British Library's AMED, BNI,  NHS trusts and public library authorities in Bournemouth, Poole, Essex, and Wiltshire.  Technical support is provided by Health Communication Network an international  clinical solutions company.

Testing of a pilot over the coming year will utilise existing web technology in public libraries to give the general public their first glimpse of what is planned as the country's major independent source of quality-assured health information.

Throughout the project opportunities will be created for the public and health care professionals to influence the design.

"All of the organisations involved are used to collaborative working across the sectors and are seeking to produce a sustainable service that satisfies both the Government's healthy living agenda and consumer needs," said Jill Beard, Bournemouth University's Deputy Librarian and leader of the project.