Nurses say no to trawling and yes to timesaving with IDS UK

A ONE-stop shop for community nurses to access healthcare information will be going live in the New Year.

Cath Davies is the woman steering the Leaflets2U project for IDS UK and she is looking forward to making the resource a valuable tool for practice nurses and GPs.

At the moment nurses have to go to individual websites to find information and order leaflets and this can be too time-consuming.

So Leaflets2U will offer them the right information at the click of a button.

“The idea of the service is to make it easier for nurses and ultimately GPs to access the correct information for their patients. They simply don't have time to trawl the net looking at individual websites – by coming to Leaflets2U they can access the best available information in a matter of minutes.

Within 48 hours they will have the leaflets they need at their surgery to give out to patients,” she said.

Cath is in the process of contacting pharmaceutical companies, charities and NHS bodies to encourage them to get involved.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for pharma companies and charities to get involved if they want their leaflets to reach the right people,” said Cath.

When IDS UK tested the water by asking community nurses what they thought of the proposed service they were overwhelmed by the response.

More than 600 nurses contacted IDS UK to say they were interested in the service.

“We are currently gathering the information and leaflets to ensure we are offering the best possible service to healthcare professionals. Having had such a positive response from nurses – we want to ensure our service is of the highest quality and is a resource they will turn to time and again,” said Cath.

Hampshire based practice nurse Ann Freeman knows better than most the benefit of having information at her fingertips.

“I like to give my patients this paper information because they can go away and read it, absorb it and then ask me more questions when they see me again. Being told you have diabetes or coronary heart disease can be really distressing, they need to know the facts and be able to take the information in at their own pace.” she said.

For more information regarding Leaflets2U, contact Cath Davies on 07795 096626.

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