Citation
(2002), "UK Health Centre", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2002.06215eag.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2002, MCB UP Limited
UK Health Centre
UK Health Centre:http://www.healthcentre.org.uk/hc/index.html
This is a portal site developed and maintained by Medical Web Services Ltd, a company specialising in Internet and Web services and consultancy for UK health and medical related professionals, organisations and groups. The Health Centre provides guidance and links to the huge amount of medical and health information from the UK that is available on the Internet. At the time of our visit, there were over 6,000 links. Most of these are to UK sites, but where no UK alternative exists, some international sites are included.
The policy on inclusion of sites seems fairly comprehensive. The aim is to provide links to trustworthy sources of UK health and medical information. The Health Centre will not knowingly post links to sites:
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containing offensive, inflammatory, illegal or misleading material, or links to sites containing such material;
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having any connection with the tobacco or alcohol industries;
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providing information on, or selling, unproven "alternative" therapies or products.
The Health Centre believes that:
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The person or organisation maintaining a site should be readily identifiable and contactable. In the case of vendor sites this should include a postal address and telephone number. For purely informational sites a working e-mail address is acceptable.
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Any sources of sponsorship or funding should be prominently listed, as should any other connection with commercial or other organisations.
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The author, qualifications and date of issue of any clinical information or advice should be easily identifiable and there should be a mechanism for feedback to the author.
When assessing a site's suitability for inclusion the Health Centre applies the following criteria:
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It does not link to Web advertisements or to temporary sites such as those advertising courses and conferences.
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It only links to journals if they provide significant content online.
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It does not link to alternative or complementary therapy sites.
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It does not link to sites hosted solely on "bulletin board" services such as eGroups.
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It does not link to sites that attempt to re-size, or otherwise alter the viewers browser.
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It is reluctant to provide links to sites hosted on free hosts because such links are often unreliable and the sites tend to be short lived.
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It gives low priority to sites that show a contact e-mail address that uses a free e-mail service.
The same criteria are applied to advertisements.
The links are regularly checked, and any that are no longer valid are removed or changed.
The Health Centre supports and abides by the HONcode principles of the Health on the Net Foundation.
From the home page, four main links are available:
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In the Press – news items from the daily broadsheet papers.
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General Public – resources indexed for patients and carers.
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Healthcare Professionals – resources indexed for health professionals.
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Health and Service Providers – health, supplies and services providers.
The first of these provides daily stories from the quality press. At the time of our visit it included stories from the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Telegraph, The Times, BBC News on Line and the New Statesman. It also provides links to a weekly archive, biomedical news, health news, and general news. It is also possible to register for a daily e-mail update.
The General Public links are comprehensive, and indexed under a variety of headings, including general and local information, information about specific conditions, information about healthcare providers and consumer health products, support groups and treatment information, health consumer rights, etc. All in all, this is a comprehensive set of links.
The Healthcare Professional links are indexed according to issues relevant to professionals, and include links to portals such as Chiropody Online, Dental Guide, DentalWeb, Doctor Internet, the National Electronic Library for Health, OnMedica, Optics Online and Pharmacy Online. It also provides links to sites concerned with clinical specialties, specific conditions, healthcare providers, computing and informatics, drug databases, evidence-based health, guidelines, health news and events, healthcare ethics, and healthcare management. Other useful links are to journals online and literature search.
Links for Health and Service Providers and suppliers include a wide variety of services, such as addiction services, care homes and agencies, counsellors and psychotherapists, healthcare insurance, infertility units, online medical consultations, overseas providers, sports medicine and travel health clinics. They also provide linkages to consumer health and medical product suppliers and professional services and supplies.
While the UK focus is a disadvantage to some readers of this Journal, it is not a major problem because much of the material is equally valid to non-UK users, and international links are also provided. The main impact of the UK-base is on links with providers of services and products. Material on conditions and practices seems less affected by the geographical limitation.
Overall, this is a fairly well-designed and easy to use site, which is extremely useful for those wishing to carry out an Internet search for sites of interest.