In this part of SAFARI we are going to cover information resources in health and social care. As with any subject it is difficult to describe every resource that may be of use, it will depend on what aspect of these subjects you are interested in. There are many health and social care resources available to Open University students through the Open Library web pages and links to many of these resources can be found here. Resources can also be found for similar subjects using the drop down menus on these subject pages.
Books are usually the best source of background and historical information, but you need to remember that these will not always be up to date. Even a book published in the current year may have been a few months (or even years) in production.
Some health and social care books are available online via Open Library. A list can be found here.
It may also be worth looking at electronic books freely available via the Internet. The Open Library's ROUTES database contains links to some of these here. In particular, the Internet Public Library, although containing mostly American publications, has many electronic books across all broad subject areas such as the natural sciences and the social sciences.
More specific books and general reference books should be available in your local academic or specialist library (depending on their subject coverage) or your work library (if applicable). See the section on libraries for more information.
Current national policy documents related to health and social care in England can be found on the Department of Health website. This includes:-
Recent and National Policy Documents for Scotland can be found from the Scottish Executive website here.
Recent National Policy Documents for Northern Ireland can be found from the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety website here.
The Department of Health National Service Frameworks website provides a gateway to the key policies and activities related to implementation of the NSFs for all health care practitioners and managers.
New policy initiatives relating to children and families in England and Wales can be found on the Research in Practice website. There is a similar website covering policies for adults.
Local authority websites vary in the amount of information they give. The Social Care Online website has a section which lists English and Welsh local authority websites with a link to the Social Services Department if available. This can be found here.
Scottish Local Authority websites can be found here.
Her Majestys Stationery Office is responsible for printing Acts of Parliament and Statutory Instruments. HMSO started to publish legislation on its website here in 1996. Initially, legislation was only available from that year. In 2000 they took the decision to include older legislation for which they had electronic files. These files dated back to 1988. Prior to 1988, legislation is only available in its original print format.
Acts of the Scottish Parliament can be found here.
Links to key social care legislation and links to books about England’s legislation
are available from Social Care Online.
Type the subject that you're interested in into the search box, eg 'adoption', and click on 'Search'. At the top
of the page showing your search results click on 'show all options', tick the box 'Legislation' and then click 'Apply'.
Social Care Online also lets you select the type of content you want to find, eg best practice, guidance, standards or research reviews. Type the subject that you're interested in into the search box, eg 'learning disabilities', and click on 'Search'. At the top of the page showing your search results click on 'show all options', tick the boxes next to the type of content you want to find, e.g. 'Good Practice', and then click 'Apply'.
The National Electronic Library for Health Guidelines Finder provides an index to clinical guidelines and currently holds details of over 800 UK national guidelines with links to Internet downloadable versions of the guidelines. It is updated on a weekly basis.
A good place to start for UK statistics is the National Statistics website which contains the latest statistical releases from the government and various full-text statistical publications in its 'Virtual Bookshelf' section. The Neighbourhood statistics part of this site lets you compare or download statistics for local areas on a wide range of subjects including population and health. Scottish statistics can be found on the Scottish Executive Statistics website.
Medical research has traditionally been published in journals. Many journals are now available electronically to Open University students through Open Library. Here is a short selection of medical journals.
If you know a title, you may also wish to search the complete list of titles available through Open Library here.
If not available electronically, the printed version of a journal may be available in your local academic or specialist library or your work library (if applicable). Alternatively, you could obtain photocopies of articles via the inter-library loan service of your local public library.
Databases are the best ways of trying to locate relevant journal articles. Databases fall into two main types.
Some databases contain a mixture of both full text and bibliographic information.
Databases are searchable and allow you to look for references on a subject in many different journals. There is a list of health and social care databases on the Open Library web pages.
You may also wish to look at all of the databases available to you through Open Library.
There are now a number of specialist sources for tracing high quality evidence. In many cases this has been synthesized and summarized to make it more accessible to practitioners and users. Many of the health related resources, eg Cochrane and Clinical Evidence, are available via the NLH. The Netting The Evidence website also lists many of the specialist health journals and databases available.
Many other organisations have websites which contain useful information. It is impossible to list all these here. However many of these will be listed on some of the health and social care gateways which are available here.