How to search for EVIDENCE and BEST PRACTICE on a topic (Evidence Summaries)
How to literature search for ARTICLES ON A SUBJECT (Databases)
How to find FULLTEXT OF A SPECIFIC ARTICLE
How to find PRINT + ELECTRONIC BOOKS (SWIMS Catalogue)
This site is maintained and hosted by Discovery Library, Derriford Hospital and gives details of selected General Practice content available to
Devon General Practice and ICB staff,
and all other staff/students on placement
across the Plymouth and SWASFT health community.
Click here to visit our main library website or here to see a list of clinical specialty pages
If you have problems or comments/suggestions about resources
please email library.mailbox@nhs.net.
OpenAthens accounts
To register go to https://openathens.nice.org.uk/
For Devon general practice and ICB staff:
Under Please enter your organisation type in Devon and select Primary Care and ICB staff in Devon.
For GP trainees based in acute and community hospitals
Under Please enter your organisation enter your acute or community organisation
i.e. University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Livewell Southwest
Please use an NHS email address to register if you have one– once registered you can access content anywhere.
NEW CONTENT
11/12/2025 New ebook content added
The Clinical Encounter : A Philosophical Analysis
Note you will need a local NHS OpenAthens account to access (register here)
How to search for EVIDENCE and BEST PRACTICE on a topic
A range of evidence-based and other resources available to help inform patient care or support your study including:
BMJ Best Practice- (Help and training resources)
Evidence-based research, guidelines and expert opinion offering step-by-step guidance on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention.
On 1st access you’ll be asked to create personal account to download free App**
***Note you will need a local NHS OpenAthens account (register here).
ClinicalKey–
Clinical insight search tool which also gives access to over 1100 electronic books and 500 journals and other fulltext resources
Note you will need a local NHS OpenAthens account (register here)
Clinical Knowledge Summaries (provided by NICE)-
Summaries of the current evidence base & practical guidance on best practice for >300 primary care presentations and regular updates to all topics
Trip Pro Database
clinical search tool designed to allow health professionals to rapidly identify the highest quality clinical evidence for clinical practice.
UpToDate–
‘an evidence-based clinical decision support resource authored by physicians to help healthcare practitioners make the best decisions at the point of care’.
Note you will need a UHP OpenAthens account (UHP staff/students register here).
(available to University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust only).
How to literature search for ARTICLES ON A SUBJECT
If you need an search assistance or 1-to-1 training on the use of resources please
contact Discovery Library.
You can also undertake NHS Learning Hub Literature Searching elearning modules – you will need an NHS OpenAthens account to access.
Search the NHS England subscribed healthcare databases below :
- CINAHL (via Ebsco)– nursing and allied health~
- Embase (via Ovid) – biomedical and pharmaceutical literature
- Emcare (via Ovid) – nursing and allied health
- HMIC (via Ovid) – healthcare management
- Medline (via EBSCO, via Ovid)- biomedical, life sciences, allied health and pre-clinical sciences literature
- Social Policy and Practice (via Ovid)- health and social care
To access the NHS subscribed databases you will need an NHS Athens account.
- Search Cochrane Library
Collection of databases incl:
-Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
-Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL)
–Cochrane Clinical Answers
that can be searched simultaneously and contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making
- Search PubMed
Free resource which contains more than 33 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Search via your organisation: - University Hospitals Plymouth
- Livewell SW, Devon General Practices, Devon Primary care and ICB staff
- South West Ambulance (SWAST)
The above link includes a local organisation logo on the right-hand side of each record. Clicking the logo will check article availability or offer a request form.
To access the content linked you will need an NHS Athens account.
- Search NHS Library and Knowledge Hub (Help)
Whilst it is advisable to search the databases above for more detailed and systematic searches, the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub can be used for more simple searches to find a couple of papers on a simple topic.
To access content on the Library and Knowledge Hub you will need an NHS Athens account.
How to find FULLTEXT OF A SPECIFIC ARTICLE
To access articles you will need a NHS OpenAthens account.
TO SEARCH FOR AVAILABILITY OF ARTICLES USE THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS:
For each option you should either be able to
- Access the fulltext of the article where we have a subscription to journal or
- Complete a form to request a copy of an article not held
- The ARTICLE TITLE via the Knowledge and Library Hub (Help)
If you have the article title please copy and paste into the main search box of the hub.
If the title is a short title using common healthcare terms, then you might want to add the Author name and/or Journal title to the search to specify your chosen article.
- The DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI) or PUBMED ID (PMID) via LibKey
– A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document and link to it on the web.
It is usually in the format:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05043-y
The bit in italics which starts all DOIs can be ignored- please copy and paste the rest of your specific into the search box.
– A PubMed identifier (PMID) is a unique value assigned to each PubMed record usually 8 digits long
- The JOURNAL TITLE using Browzine
The search only includes journals for which organisation has a subscription.
If a journal is embargoed the embargoed article will still be listed but when you click to access content you will receive a article request form rather than the fulltext.
- BROWSER EXTENSION to check all scholarly pages for local access via Nomad
Please note: On University Hospitals Plymouth and Livewell SW networked machines IT have already made Nomad automatically available via Microsoft Edge.
You will need to manually download to any other browsers you use on NHS Personal Device
Selected General Practice and Community Medicine journals below
If we don’t hold your required article you can consider making an article request via the library.
| Journal | Coverage | Notes |
| BMC Family Practice | 2000- | |
| BMC Public Health | 2001- | |
| BMJ | 1840- | |
| BMJ Quality and Safety | 1840- | |
| British Journal of Community Nursing | 1996- | |
| British Journal of Healthcare Assistants | 2007- | |
| British Journal of Healthcare Management | 1998- | |
| British Journal of Nursing | 1992- | |
| Community Practitioner | 2000- | |
| Evidence-Based Medicine | 1998- | |
| Evidence-Based Nursing | 2000- | |
| Family Practice Management | 2007- | |
| GP: General Practitioner | 2003- | |
| Independent Nurse | 2005- | |
| Journal of Community Nursing | 2004- | |
| Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health | 1947- | |
| Journal of Health Visiting | 2013- | |
| Journal of Medical Ethics | 1975- | |
| Journal of Prescribing Practice | 2003- | |
| Lancet | 2007- | |
| New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) | 1990- | |
| Nursing | 2002- | |
| Nursing Times | 2005- | If asked to ‘Find your institution’ enter NHS in England |
| Practice Management | 2014- | |
| Practice Nursing | 1996- | |
| Practitioner | 1998- | |
| Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice | 2007- | |
| Primary Care Diabetes | 2007- | |
| Primary Care Respiratory Journal | 2000- | |
| Primary Health Care | 2001- | |
| Public Health | 2007- |
How to find PRINT + ELECTRONIC BOOKS
This is a regional NHS catalogue, so in location select
‘Plymouth, Derriford Hospital, PLY’
to limit your search to print books held at Discovery Library, Derriford.
The shelfmark will correspond with shelf in library collection.
If you are unable to visit the library in person please email library.mailbox@nhs.net to request postal delivery of required book(s)
Ebooks– select your location based on your organisation :
–Plymouth, Derriford Hospital, PLY (for UHP, Livewell and Devon GP and ICB staff)
-South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust SWASFT
You will need an NHS OpenAthens login to to access ebooks.
You can also log in and renew your books here (if you have not already made a pin number for your library account follow the instructions on screen).
If we don’t have the book you require you can consider making a book request.
(Service for registered borrowers, undertaking NHS work. Registration forms are available here).
Selected General Practice ebooks listed below. Always select to login with OpenAthens account
Discovery Library 