In the past few months, lots of people and organisations have been saying different things about covid-19. It can be hard to know what’s accurate and who can be trusted, particularly for patients and members of the public. Having reliable, trustworthy information has a huge impact on people’s ability to manage their health and wellbeing, both now and more generally.
This year, Health Information Week 2020 (#HIW2020) runs from 6th-12th July. It’s an annual event, and a great time to think about questions like: where do you find information? How do you know if it’s reliable? How do you assess it for yourself? How do you help your patients access the best information? These are all really relevant to covid-19. They’re also vital for people wanting to live healthy lifestyles, or who need to know more about their rare diagnosis, or who have common conditions such as frailty, diabetes, or heart disease.
There are lots of resources to help you as you support patients and members of the public with finding high quality information.
www.nhs.uk is a good first place to look for information on most illnesses and healthy lifestyle advice – you probably already know about it
Health Education England has brought together reliable covid-19 resources at https://library.nhs.uk/coronavirus-resources/
PIFTick and HONCode (Health on the Net) are two kitemarks for high quality information for patients – read more about quality standards here
For a short list of questions to help patients assess the information they find, go to https://healthinfoweek.wixsite.com/healthinfoweek/public-information-1
To pick up on new helpful resources, follow @UHDBLibrary and @HealthInfoWeek, and look out for the hashtag #HIW2020 on Twitter.
If appropriate, tell patients, friends and family about the virtual session from Burton public library on 'Sources of Useful Health Information for Cancer and Mental Health', delivered in partnership by our Chartered Training Librarian Suzanne Toft. The event is being held via Zoom on Wednesday 15th July, 7pm-8pm. Check out the Staffordshire Library Service’s Facebook page for more details and to how register, https://www.facebook.com/staffordshirelibraries.
To support your own wellbeing, the Library has the Reading Well collections with high quality books on various conditions, and a selection of fiction. The libraries at RDH and QHB are open from 6th July – check the new opening times and other changes at https://www.uhdblibrary.co.uk/post/libraries-reopening-on-6th-july If you’re not sure whether you’re eligible to be a member, check our criteria at https://www.uhdblibrary.co.uk/join
#HIW2020 is a great opportunity to find new, helpful sources of reliable information, and to help patients and members of the public find the information they need to support their health and wellbeing.
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