Social workers’ input needed for NHS staff advice website

NHS Evidence seeks social care expertise

Social workers are being urged to help shape the future of a web portal designed to provide easy access to research, best practice guidance and other useful information.

NHS Evidence was launched in April 2009 to provide a single point of access for sources of evidence to inform practice, through an easy-to-use search function.

Though most of the accessible information covers health, NHS Evidence links to some social care sources, including the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s Social Care Online database of information and the Department of Health’s social care commissioning ebook.

However, chief operating officer Gillian Leng said that it wanted to expand its range of social care information and hear what social care professionals wanted from its service.

She said: “We need to engage more with the social care audience and find out when they need to access information and what types of information they are looking for.”

NHS Evidence is setting up a number of advisory panels to help inform the sources of content it uses, and is looking for social care staff to join.

• More information from the NHS Evidence website