News > Evaluating the quality of health information

The BMA are now able to accept entries for the 2010 Patient Information Awards and hope that PiF members who have produced or updated patient resources in 2009 will want to submit their entries. You can view photos from the September 2009 awards here: www.flickr.com/photos/bma-library

There are nine special awards as well as the overall award for Patient Information Resource of the Year: Online and Digital Media, People with Learning Difficulties, Young People, Children, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Information for Carers, NHS Trust,  and Creative Design.  All resources are appraised by patient information specialists who use a structured appraisal form.

Materials should have been published in 2009 or before the end of February 2010.  Please note that the Patient Information Award is intended for leaflets of under one hundred pages.  Patient Information which is longer than this should be entered to the Popular Medicine category of the BMA Medical Book Awards.  Electronic resources which have no exact paper equivalent can be entered to the Patient Information Award (online & digital media) prize.

Resources must be in English and meet six mandatory criteria.

• Inclusion of date of publication and review date or last checked date, this should be clear and unambiguous
• Involvement of patients in the content development and review in order to represent their views
• Involvement of health professionals in the production of the resource
• Clear statement of target readership
• Accuracy of clinical information
• Absence of spelling or grammatical mistakes
  

Resources which meet these mandatory criteria will be considered by the short-listing panel. The panel chooses a range of winners - from trust publications, patient groups and national charities - in order to acknowledge the wide variety of useful information which is produced in the UK.

The Patient Information award (websites) has now been merged with the special award for online & digital media: there is now only one entry form for all materials. The competition is free to enter and winners are invited to a prestigious awards ceremony and reception at BMA House to receive their certificates. You can find more information about the rules, the criteria for selection and judging on the BMA web site.

Three copies of each entry, should be sent to Mrs Clare Wade at BMA Library, BMA, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JP by Friday 26th February 2010.
email: info.bkawards@bma.org.uk
tel: 020 7383 6639

www.bma.org.uk/piaaward#conditions