Evidence Submission: Information Prescriptions

Information Prescriptions were launched under the previous Labour government as a way to give patients or service users better information about their condition, treatment options and support networks. They aimed to give more support to people with long term needs, to tackle inequalities, improve access to services, provide choice and give a stronger voice to individuals and communities.

Information Prescriptions were trialled in 20 sites in the UK and evaluated by a group including the Office for Public Management, GfK-NOP and the University of York. In this report, the Making the Most of Evaluation research group have appraised the evaluation.

The research group concluded that the evaluation of Information Prescriptions included a number of disparate elements of data collection, with some elements stronger than others. In particular, the evaluation was weakest in terms of determining whether Information Prescriptions were effective and had a positive impact.

Given that patient choice is a key drivers behind the current coalition’s health policy, this report describes how the Information Prescriptions evaluation provides only limited information to support further implementation of the initiative.

Click here to read the report in full and you can read the summary report of all the reviews here.