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W3C-validated transitional XHTML 1.2 Before you start: What are information prescriptions?
The Department of Health white paper 'Our health, our care, our say' published in January 2006 made a commitment to improving access to appropriate information for people with health or social care needs. It stated, 'We propose that services give all people with long-term health and social care needs and their carers an 'information prescription'.
Information prescriptions will be nationally recognised as a source of key information on services and care that is seamlessly and formally integrated into the care process.
The Department of Health set out what it regards as the five main things that any organisation that will be issuing IPs should consider:
Content: Reliable and relevant sources of information.- Directories: Directories usually in the form of databases containing the information sources that your professionals will be prescribing.
- Personalised: Information prescriptions should be specific to each condition, stage and place.
- Issuing: A prescribing and dispensing process for the prescriptions you are creating and issuing to people.
- Access: Information prescriptions should be made accessible to users through a range of channels.
The Department of Health piloted a programme in which twenty health and social care organisations throughout England tested the process of issuing information prescriptions to patients and carers in their local area. This resource is based on what these pilot sites achieved and it designed to help people in all kinds of health and social care organisations to develop their own information prescriptions service.
The information prescription pilot programme has also made it clear that:
- Information should be made available that supports people with all aspects of their lives in managing their condition, such as advice on benefits, housing, social care, carers and issues relating to quality of life.
- Whenever they request or require it, users and carers should have access to support with IPs, whether through face-to-face contact with prescribers and dispensers, or through help-lines.
- Information should be provided in suitable formats (suitable for people with a sensory impairment, written in plain English, young person friendly, etc).
- Users and carers should be able to access both generic information about the condition, and relevant local information, such as information about support groups and local services.
- Users and carers need to be involved in the accreditation of information, and the design and implementation of IP prescribing and dispensing.
- IPs should adhere to a common set of national standards and outcomes.
The 'resources' box on the right points to some background reading on information prescriptions and patient choice.
The next page outlines the main national programmes linked to information prescriptions.
