NHS EVIDENCE - NEW!

Provided by NICE, NHS Evidence is a new service which will develop, enhance and expand the services that were previously provided by the National Library for Health (NLH). The NLH and its Specialist Libraries became part of NHS Evidence on 1 April 2009. Release 1 of the NHS Evidence portal and search engine went live on 30 April 2009, at http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/.

"Specialist collections" is the new name for the Specialist Libraries. Each collection has been renamed under NHS Evidence as "NHS Evidence - specialty", so, for example, the Stroke Specialist Library has become NHS Evidence - stroke, and the Skin Disorders Specialist Library has become NHS Evidence - skin disorders. But apart from the new name and branding on the websites, if you are a previous user of the Specialist Libraries, you shouldn't notice any other differences - even the URLs are staying the same for now. Within each collection, you will still find the same high quality resources, chosen for each specialty to ensure easy access to the best available evidence.

For more information about NHS Evidence, please follow this link: www.evidence.nhs.uk/AboutUs.aspx.

Background to the NHS Evidence Specialist Collections and Annual Evidence Updates
The specialist collections have been developed to identify and meet the information needs of particular communities of practice. They are web-based collections containing clinical and non-clinical information on the major health priority areas. Each specialist collection identifies and provides access to quality assessed information of relevance to the community that it serves. An aspect of this involves the production of Annual Evidence Updates, which aim to highlight the best current evidence for selected healthcare topics. Annual Evidence Updates consist of the good quality evidence from a search of research evidence on a particular topic over a 12 month period, plus user-friendly summaries written by relevant experts, and links to guidelines, secondary research and primary research, if applicable. All information included in Annual Evidence Updates has been subject to rigorous selection criteria.

The calendar of currently confirmed Annual Evidence Updates until September 2009 is available at www.library.nhs.uk/forlibrarians/sl.