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2.8 First steps: What information is there?

In order to prescribe information you need to have good sources in the first place.

How will you gather the information you need?

Perhaps you can start with a service where information giving is already happening, or with national databases. With national information easy to access, you may want to concentrate more on identifying what local information is still needed. If you have librarians on site or in your organisation they can offer considerable expertise in assessing information and offering advice on how to expand it. They often have good local knowledge of other directories in the area such as those complied and maintained by voluntary organisations, benefit organisations, long term condition sites, etc. See also the page on building partnerships.

Your organisation will need to choose between covering a large number of topics, or building up a bank of knowledge on some key themes. The breadth and range of information gathered varied across the 20 pilot sites. The South Staffordshire pilot could not predict the profile of its users, nor their information needs, and therefore collected information on a very wide range of topics. Sites such as Darlington, who decided to offer a web-based information hub with a broad aim of improving awareness of opportunities for self management, also tended to go for wide coverage. Other sites chose a small number of conditions and explored them in depth, or used existing, condition-related resources, such as those produced by cancer networks. See the links in the 'More resources' box on the right.

It is important to recognise that, at this early stage, how much work can be involved in making the available information useful, bearing in mind that the more detailed and personal information is to the service users, the more useful they will find it.

Linking to existing or future initiatives and policies

An on-going task for organisations is identifying existing or forthcoming initiatives, policies and practice which either affect or could be linked with IP. Your project manager needs to find out about internal systems and practice in order to spot these opportunities. Ideas which emerged from the pilots included:

• building IP into existing communication strategies of a unit or centre;
• dovetailing the IP process with other initiatives such as Books on Prescription; and
• a range of approaches to record keeping, such as including new functions on electronic record systems.

On the next page: the importance of involving users and carers and professionals from the start.