Evidence Search
To book your place on the course contact the library team:
www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/lis
E: [email protected]
T: 020 8296 2430
Evidence Search
Evidence Search is a single web-based portal to authoritative clinical and non-clinical evidence and
best practices and was created as a direct result of Lord Darzi’s report “High Quality Care for All: NHS
Next Stage Review” in 2008. Access Evidence Search directly from the web address:
www.evidence.nhs.uk
The front page has a single search box (similar to Google) which searches accredited sources of free
information such as the Cochrane Library, the National Library of Guidelines, British National
Formulary, European Medicines Agency and the Royal Colleges.
There are direct accesses to the NICE Pathways, NICE Guidance, BNF, BNF for Children, Clinical
Knowledge Summaries (CKS), Journals and Databases.
Searching
You enter terms in the search box, and results are returned which contain ALL the search terms.
Spelling
Search terms are checked against a medical dictionary for accuracy. Alternatives are offered for
misspelt terms and suggestions are made as you type.
Word variations (stemming)
The search engine automatically searches for words that are similar to some or all of your search
terms, e.g. results for “strategies” will return related variations such as “strategy”.
Capitalisation
Searches are not case sensitive.
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Searching phrases
To search for an exact phrase just put quotation marks around the phrase. For example, searching for
“bell’s palsy” will return only those documents where that exact phrase appears.
Wildcard (asterisk*)
You can use a wildcard to find all variations of a word: for example surg* will find surgeon, surgery and
surgical.
You do not have to use a wildcard to search for a plural form, e.g. nurse / nurses.
Type here your
search terms
Results
Evidence Search ranks results based on the position of the word on the text (if the word is in the title it
will be higher than if the word is in the text) and the relative hierarchy of evidence, for example
Guidelines and Commissioning Guides are listed above Primary Research articles. Therefore the best
evidence available for your search will be presented as the first hits in the results list.
By default results are sorted by relevance but you can choose to view by publication date.
Refine your search results using the filters on the left hand side of the screen
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Filter your results.
You can filter by:
 Areas of Interest
 Types of Information including
Patient Information
 Clinical Queries
 Sources
 Medicines and Devices
 Published date
To remove a filter you need to click on the X next to it:
The Accreditation Mark will be shown beside the result if the type of information and the source have
been approved by the Evidence Search Advisory Committee. You can find more about the
accreditation process following the link on the front page
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Other features from Evidence Search
Nice Pathways
The Nice Pathways provide quick and easy access to information produced by NICE in selected topics.
Clinical guidelines, quality standards, NICE implementation tools, information for patients and others
are linked to relevant pathways. It doesn’t include information from any other sources.
They can be found via the link ont the top of the Evidence Search Website:
Or via the filter on the right hand side:
You can search the pathways via the Evidence Search website or via the NICE pathways section
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Each pathway is linked with the relevant resources and information for the public and links to NICE
guidelines and resources useful for its implementation.
You can download the pathways as pdf documents and switch to mobile view.
Click to download
the pathway as a pdf
Click to see
more
information
Links to
guidelines and
quality standards
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NICE Guidelines
The NICE Guidelines can be accessed via the top menu or via the search results
Guidance
You can browse within general categories or search for conditions
Search
Browse by
category
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The NICE Guidelines pages also provide access to advice and cost saving and productivity tools
Evidence summaries: Unlicensed
or off-label medicines
Savings and productivity collection
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Register for Athens
Evidence Search also provides access to Healthcare Information Bibliographic Databases which
include links to full text journals. In order to access these and other information resources you need an
Athens username and password.
Click on the resources you would like to access or register for Open Athens if you don’t have an
account already.
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Register for OpenAthens
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