Resources with Free Access
For NHS Medicines Information Services
This is a list of resources that are freely accessible and considered useful to NHS MI services. It includes free paper resources (e.g. BNF, drug tariff) and freely accessible websites via the Internet or via National library arrangements. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. It is organised under general subject headings and should be used in conjunction with ‘Resources for Purchase by NHS Medicines Information Services’. Other UKMi resources give guidance on what resources to use when, e.g. UKMi workbook, Enquiry Answering Guidelines. There is also guidance on the risks associated with the use of various resources available in
Limitations of Common Information Sources used by UKMi at http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/filestore/ukmiacg/LimitationsofCommonInformationSourcesv6-June2014_3.doc.
Although UKMi cannot assure the quality of the listed resources, all those listed are produced by reputable/well known organisations. URLs are available for download via the MiDatabank administrators and were correct at the time of publication but are liable to change. Where registration is required this is indicated. This document may also be used to store details of your departmental usernames and passwords if you haven’t entered them in MiDatabank. This can then be kept in an accessible place for all staff working in MI.
See also Effective use of the Internet for Enquiry Answering for guidance on how to assess the quality of a website.
Updating the List
This list will be updated with new editions/ URLs etc. on an ongoing basis. The Clinical Governance Working Group reviews the content of the list periodically although the content of the website or resource is not formally reviewed. Suggestions for additions or deletions can be forwarded to
.
Changes since October 2014 /Title / Authors/ Publisher / URL and general notes /
Paediatric Formulary
9th Edition 2014 / Guy’s, St Thomas’ and Lewisham Hospitals / Change: addition to the list
Hard copy no longer available for purchase. A downloadable PDF is available for free.
http://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/resources/publications/formulary/paediatric-formulary-9th-edition.pdf
Medicines Compliance Aid (MCA) database / UKMi / Change: addition to the list
http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/applications/mca/
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre / Integrative Medicine Service / Change: addition to the list
http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/about-herbs-botanicals-other-products
Title / Username/ password / Authors/ Publisher / URL and general notes /
General
British National Formulary / BMA and RPS (twice yearly) / One paper copy considered essential for each MI centre (only the September edition is published for free; March edition only available fro purchase).
Online access preferred as updated monthly
www.medicinescomplete.com/mc/bnf/current/
DoH—Department of Health / DoH / https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health
Drug Safety Update / MHRA / https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update
Drug Tariff / The Stationery Office (monthly) / Only available online www.ppa.org.uk/ppa/edt_intro.htm
electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC) / DataPharm Communications / http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/
EMBASE / England:
www.evidence.nhs.uk/nhs-evidence-content/journals-and-databases.
Athens password required.
Wales:
http://howis.wales.nhs.uk
Scotland: www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/home.aspx
Google search engine / Google / www.google.co.uk for general seach engine but also use Google scholar for more academic focus http://scholar.google.co.uk/
Medicines Q & As / UKMi / http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/activities/medicinesQAs/default.asp
An excel spreadsheet is available (with links) to all current Q & As.
Q & As can also be accessed via the NICE evidence search www.evidence.nhs.uk
(filter by Type of information ‘Evidence Summaries’ and Source ‘UKMi')
Medline / England:
www.evidence.nhs.uk/nhs-evidence-content/journals-and-databases
Athens password required.
Wales:
http://howis.wales.nhs.uk
Scotland: www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk/home.aspx
MHRA—Medicines & Healthcare Regulatory Agency / MHRA / www.mhra.gov.uk
MIMS
Monthly Index of Medical Specialities / Haymarket Medical Pubs. / www.emims.net Username and password required. NB. Access free to MICs (contact Regional Centre for details)
Netdoctor / Collaboration of UK and European healthcare professionals / www.netdoctor.co.uk www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/
For information about drugs, search the “Medicines” section rather than the whole site.
General
OTC Directory / Proprietary Association of Great Britain / Available in searchable form at www.medicinechestonline.co.uk. Use website drop down and selection criteria to access.
UKMi / UKMi / www.ukmi.nhs.uk
Some areas are password protected (contact Regional Centre for password)
UKMi Discussion Group / Ecompass (host) / http://list.ecompass.nl/listserv/cgi-bin/wa?A0=MI-UK
Adverse effects
CHM—Commission on Human Medicines / CHM/MHRA / www.mhra.gov.uk/Committees/Medicinesadvisorybodies/CommissiononHumanMedicines/index.htm.
Drug Analysis Prints (DAPs) for Yellow Card data / MHRA / http://www.mhra.gov.uk/drug-analysis-prints/drug-analysis-prints-a-z/index.htm
INCHEM / International Programme on Chemical Safety / www.inchem.org/.
Toxicology information on chemicals and drugs.
TOXNET / US National Library Medicine / http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/. Toxicology information including pregnancy related toxicity information. Also links to LactMed (see below) for drugs in lactation information.
G6PD website / Associazione Italiana Favismo / http://www.g6pd.org/.
Associazione Italiana Favismo is affiliated with UNIAMO, Italian Federation for Rare Diseases, which is member of EURORDIS, European Organization for Rare Diseases.
This site should not be used in isolation for g6pd queries; no single resource is comprehensive. This site contains lists of safe and unsafe drugs and also attempts to quantify risk (low vs. high).
Availability
IDIS World Medicines / IDIS World Medicines / www.idispharma.com
Durbin PLC / Durbin PLC / www.durbin.co.uk
Pro-file Database / Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Trust / Sourcing unlicensed ‘special’ medicines. www.pro-file.nhs.uk. Registration required.
Complementary Medicine
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre / Integrative Medicine Service / http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/about-herbs-botanicals-other-products
Information for patients is also available
Complementary Medicine
Safety of Herbal Medicines / MHRA / www.mhra.gov.uk/Safetyinformation/Safetywarningsalertsandrecalls/Safetywarningsandmessagesformedicines/Safetywarningsandmessagesforherbalmedicines/index.htm
Contraception and Hormone Replacement Therapy
IPPF Directory of Hormonal Contraceptives / International Planned Parenthood Federation / http://contraceptive.ippf.org
Registration required. Can be used to identify foreign contraceptive pills.
Family Planning Association / Family Planning Association / www.fpa.org.uk
Contraception and Hormone Replacement Therapy
Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Healthcare / Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists / www.ffprhc.org.uk/.
Useful guidelines including choice of a contraceptive agent at different ages, in breast feeding, inflammatory bowel disease, interactions, missed pills and using pills outside their product licence, EHC and product reviews.
Diagnostic tests
Labtests online / Collaboration of professional societies and supported by the Department of Health. / www.labtestsonline.org.uk/.
Patient orientated.
Drug abuse
Drug Misuse and Dependence—Guidelines on Clinical Management (The Orange Guide) / National Treatment Agency / www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/clinical_guidelines_2007.pdf
DrugScope / DrugScope / www.drugscope.org.uk
National Institute on Drug Abuse / The National Institute on Drug Abuse (US) / www.nida.nih.gov
Talk to Frank / DoH / Home Office / www.talktoFrank.com
Drug administration
Intravenous Drug Administration Guides / UKMi recommends all centres have access to good quality IV administration guidance.
IMG—Injectable Medicines Guide (Medusa) / Health of Wales Information Service / http://medusa.wales.nhs.uk or www.injguide.nhs.uk.
NB. Available free to contributing Trusts and all Trusts in Wales & N Ireland.
Stabilis / Compiled by hospital pharmacists in France / http://www.stabilis.org/
Compatibility and stability data to supplement other resources.
Drug interactions
HIV Drug Interactions / The University of Liverpool / www.hiv-druginteractions.org
Hepatitis drug interactions / The University of Liverpool / www.hep-druginteractions.org
Cytochrome P450 website / Indiana University / http://medicine.iupui.edu/flockhart/
QT prolongation / US education organisation AZCERT / www.azcert.org.
List drugs that prolong the QT Interval and/or induce Torsades de Pointes by risk category.
Medscape drug interaction checker / Medscape / www.medscape.com/druginfo/druginterchecker
Registration required.
Drugs.com interactions checker / Cerner Multum / http://www.drugs.com/drug_interactions.html
To be used only after other approved sources have been used. Useful for information not readily available in UK sources.
Evidence Based Medicine
Evidence Search—Health and Social care / NICE / www.evidence.nhs.uk.
General search engine for evidence based reviews relevant to the NHS.
Bandolier / Pain Research Group
Oxford / www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier
N.B. It doesn’t look as if this site has been updated for some time. Still useful for explanations of terms e.g. NNT etc but do not use for evidence.
The Cochrane Library / The Cochrane Foundation
John Wiley & Sons / http://www.cochranelibrary.com/
Medicines and Prescribing Centre / NICE / http://www.nice.org.uk/mpc/index.jsp
New site following integration of the former National Prescribing Centre into NICE.
NICE -National Institute for Health and Care Excellence / NICE / www.nice.org.uk
CKS
Clinical Knowledge Summaries / NICE / http://cks.nice.org.uk/
SIGN—Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network / SIGN / www.sign.ac.uk
WeMeRec Bulletins / Welsh Medicines Resource Centre / www.wemerec.org
HTA assessments / National Coordinating Centre for HTA / www.hta.ac.uk/ Many of these evaluations inform NICE guidance.
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination / University of York / www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/
Infections
The Green Book Immunisation Against Infectious Disease / DoH / https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england/series/immunisation-against-infectious-disease-the-green-book
Immunisation Information / Public Health England / https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england/series/immunisation
Public Health England / Gov.uk / https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england
Replaces the Health Protection Agency site
Lactation
At least two resources should be used for all lactation enquiries.
See also Resources for purchase list.
LactMed / US National Library of Medicine / http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT.
UK Drugs in Lactation Advisory Service database / Trent and West Midlands MIC
UKMi / http://www.midlandsmedicines.nhs.uk/content.asp?section=6&subsection=17&pageIdx=1
Legal and ethical
Medicines, Ethics and Practice: A guide for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians / RPS / www.rpharms.com/law-and-ethics/medicines-ethics-and-practice-guide.asp
Only free to RPS members.
New products
NDO
New Drugs Online / UKMi / www.ukmi.nhs.uk/applications/NDO/
Registration required (free). Also contains links to independent new medicines reviews.
New medicines reviews / UKMi/L(C)NDG / UKMi/ L(C)NDG/ RDTC new medicines evaluations listed at http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/activities/newProducts/default.asp?pageRef=3
but available via www.evidence.nhs.uk
NIHR Horizon Scanning Centre / http://www.hsc.nihr.ac.uk/
Midlands Therapeutics and Review Advisory Committee (MTRAC) / http://centreformedicinesoptimisation.co.uk/mtrac/committee-recommendations
Click on relevant alphabetical files to access ‘Commissioning support sheets’ for listed products. Tick box and download to access pdf document.
Patents Database / UKMi / http://www.midlandsmedicines.nhs.uk/content.asp?section=5&subsection=9&pageIdx=1
UKMi username and password required
Prescribing Outlook / UKMi / http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/activities/newProducts/default.asp?pageRef=12
Scottish medicines Consortium (SMC) reviews / SMC / www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/
All Wales Medicines Strategy Group (AWMSG) reviews / AWMSG / www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/home.cfm?OrgID=371
New products
European Medicines Agency / EMA / www.ema.europa.eu
Paediatrics
BNF for Children 2014-2015 / BMA, RPSGB, RCPCH & NPPG (annual) / One paper copy considered essential for each MI centre (published annually)online via. Online access preferred since the content is updated monthly. http://www.medicinescomplete.com/mc/bnfc/current/
Paediatric Formulary
9th Edition, 2014 / Guy’s, St Thomas’ and Lewisham Hospitals / 9th edition available as a PDF via: http://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/resources/publications/formulary/paediatric-formulary-9th-edition.pdf.
An iApp is due to be released in March 2015 (small charge will apply)
Medicines for Children / Partnership RCPCH, NPPG and WellChild. / http://www.medicinesforchildren.org.uk/. Also contains patient information leaflets.
Palliative care
Palliative Adult Network Guidelines (PANG) / Developed by a collaboration of UK Cancer networks / Freely available at http://book.pallcare.info/. This should be used as a core resource in preference to the print version, but not the electronic version, of Palliative Care Formulary (see below).
Palliative Care Matters / Network of Palliative Care healthcare professionals. / www.pallcare.info/ Use in preference to PANG for syringe driver compatibilities www.pallcare.info/mod.php?mod=sdrivers&menu=14
Palliativedrugs.com
(Palliative Care Formulary on-line) / Robert Twycross & Andrew Wilcock / www.palliativedrugs.com
(Registration required), but the syringe driver tables are freely available using login (click on SDSD tab).
Patient information
NHS Choices / Gov.uk / http://www.nhs.uk
Patient UK / Patient Information Publications/ Egton Medical Information Systems / www.patient.co.uk.
This site has useful healthcare professional pages (see Therapeutics section below).
Medicines Guides / Datapharm Communications / www.medicines.org.uk/Guides
Pharmaceutical
The Fridge Database / Northwick Park MIC
UKMi / www.ukmi.nhs.uk/Secure/Fridge/Index.asp UKMi username and password required
Medicines Compliance Aid (MCA) database / Southwest Medicines Information
UKMi / http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/applications/mca/
Pregnancy
At least two resources should be used for all pregnancy enquiries.
See also Resources for purchase list.
TOXBASE / UKTIS* UK Teratology Information Service / www.toxbase.org
Registration required.
Monographs not suitable as patient information leaflets—see BUMPs.
Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology / Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology / https://www.rcog.org.uk
A range of guidelines on women’s health is available.
BUMPS—Best use of medicines in pregnancy / UKTIS / www.medicinesinpregnancy.org.
Produced by UKTIS. Provides information factsheets (containing essentially the same information as Toxbase) suitable for members of the public which can be used in discussion with a health care provider. Inclusion on this list does not endorse its use by patients without such support.
Psychiatry
www.switchwiki.eu / Psychiatrienet / http://wiki.psychiatrienet.nl/index.php/Main_Page
Contains tables for:
· Switching between antidepressants
· Switching between antipsychotics
· Benzodiazepine conversion calculator
NB. Inaccuracies in some tables have been identified. The authors have subsequently corrected these. This resource should only be used in conjunction with other resources and, ideally, be discussed with a mental health specialist
Liver impairment
LiverTox / See opposite for details. / http://livertox.nlm.nih.gov/index.html
This resource is a joint venture between the Liver Disease Research Branch of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the Division of Specialized Information Services of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health
Statistics
Statistics in Divided Doses / North West MIC
UKMi / www.ukmi.nhs.uk/activities/Research/default.asp?pageRef=27
Therapeutics
Patient UK / Patient Information Publications / Egton Medical Information Systems / www.patient.co.uk.
After putting a term in the search box you will have a list of resources to choose from. Those with an apple and a plus sign are written for healthcare professionals and are an excellent resource with the following general headings: presentation, diagnosis, aetiology, epidemiology, assessment, management etc.
The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Treatment / Berkow, R et al
Merck and Co. / www.merckmanuals.com/professional/index.html.
The latest edition can also be purchased as a hard copy.
Dermnet / New Zealand Dermatological Society / www.dermnetnz.org/
A useful starting point for background information and advice for dermatological enquiries.
Travel
Malaria Reference Laboratory / HPA (now part of Public Health England) / www.malaria-reference.co.uk
National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) / National Travel Health Network and Centre, DoH / www.nathnac.org.
This advice is based on that produced by the HPA (now Public Health England) and may differ from advice in other sources (i.e. Travax, Fit for Travel). However, all advice is evidence based. It is advised that one resource only is used in these circumstances.
Health Advice for Travellers / NHS England / http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/Healthcareabroad/pages/Healthcareabroad.aspx
Fit for Travel / Provided by NHS Scotland. / www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk.
Public access site for sister site Travax.
This advice is based on that produced by NHS Scotland and may differ from advice in other sources (i.e. NaTHNac). However, all advice is evidence based. It is advised that one resource only is used in these circumstances.
Wound management and dressings
Dressings.org / Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory / www.dressings.org
NB website last modified Nov 2011
Date: February 2015