BMJ  2006;333:1239 (16 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39059.512269.DB

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GPs should use "premier" information sources when prescribing

Michael Day

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

GPs should not use internet search engines, such as Google or Medline, when seeking advice on what to prescribe, say senior NHS officials.

Instead they should stick to "premier" information sources, such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the Cochrane Collaboration, or national service frameworks.

Experts from the National Prescribing Centre told this week's annual NICE conference that this would eliminate waste and improve patient care.

"Most start at Medline, when we should be starting with the most useful sources that have been sifted for usefulness," said the centre's medical director, Neal Maskrey.

He added that many GPs were ill equipped to make rational prescribing decisions based on complicated medical research papers or obscure reports.

"Given that less than 40% of GPs know what ‘absolute risk' or ‘relative risk' is, it's not surprising they get it wrong sometimes," he said, adding that NICE reports and national . . . [Full text of this article]


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