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Review of online patient information for spinal care- 'A Curate's Egg'

by Diarmaid Ferguson | May 23, 2020 | in Spinal Conditions

With the advent of more digitally based virtual clinics, we reviewed patient information available online to help facilitate sharing of information/links on line .

NHS A-Z conditions, Patient info and other national and local sites available on line were reviewed. Some good information and advice is available but nearly all were tainted like the 'curates egg' with poor advice about posture and lifting, ineffective exercises, and scary language about slipped, ruptured discs.

Some great patient information, posters and handouts  have been developed by excellent clinicians nationally but difficult to find and not easily accessible for patients.  

NICE have developed Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) which are embedded in SystmOne and EmisWeb, UpToDate and other summaries exist in secondary care. These resources are up to date and offer ability to have evidence based discussion with patients by clinicians.

There could be an equivalent, patient facing information site which is adequately resourced, kept up to date and accessible to all.

What is needed to sustain the change?

Develop, resource and maintain one national resource database who could host recommended information which is useful, up to date and evidence based. Patient information could be reviewed by appropriate bodies and patients (Of course work must be acknowledged)

We do not need to reinvent the wheel, just allow previously published good work /materials to be shared and accessed.

We work for a National Service and good information should be accessible to all. 

What is your region?

North East

Tagged users
edited on Jul 13, 2020 by Kyle Beacham
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Adam Dobson May 23, 2020

Fantastic summary of the problem. NHS websites both nationally and locally through intranet/extranets should be reviewed and updated with the most up-to-date and honest evidence based information. This would be helpful for self management and reassurance of those with pain but also play a role in general education.

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Ben Wanless May 31, 2020

A couple of years ago I met with the NHS choices guys to try and get the MSK web pages more in line with the evidence. They were interested but didn't have the resources or clearly the inclination to overhaul the information. At the time i was a bit defated by this, but I've reached the conclusion that simple information, no matter how good, doesn't make a huge differece to people beyond general edcuation. We need something better and more personlised....

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Adam Dobson Jun 1, 2020

Hi Ben.

As Diarmaid says we do not need to reinvent the wheel but attempt to offer up good work that already exists- vet it and standardise it. Ive already posted some adapted works on Twitter that will form part our landing page at south tees. I am not sure we could of done this a few years ago.

In time this may inspire broader adoption

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Fantastic project! NHS branded advice should reflect contemporary knowledge and practice.

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ANNA WHITE May 24, 2020

Brilliant idea, and long overdue, lots of time wasted reinventing or editing advice sheets

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chris mercer May 26, 2020

A central national resource keeps cropping up as a useful addition- why wouldn’t we have one?

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Ben Wanless May 31, 2020

Completely agree with this in principal but I do wonder even if we had an NHS endorsed website or leaflet that is gold-standard and evidence based do we know it will postively change peoples behaviour? Simple information leaflets or webpages don't and can't integrate behaviour change techniques and so should we not be moving towards a more personlised and responsive version of this?

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Greta McLachlan Jun 3, 2020

Status labels added: Patients activation, Integration of resources, Implementation, Technology (software/ apps), Regional Collaboration, Horizon 4

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Greta McLachlan Jun 3, 2020

The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.

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Kyle Beacham Jul 13, 2020

Status labels removed: Implementation, Integration Of Resources, Patient Activation, Regional Collaboration, Technology (Software/ Apps)

Reply 0