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• Information Access toolkit
  • About the Toolkit
  • Overview of the Toolkit
  • How to use the Toolkit
  • How this Toolkit was developed
  • Information is important
  • Section one: Setting up systems
  • Section two: Providing a named contact
  • Section three: Information about local services
  • Section four: Information on managing a condition
  • Section five: Information about social inclusion
  • Section six: Assessing information needs
  • Resource Pages

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The toolkit is divided into eight sections. The central six sections mirror the key self assessment questions related to information in the self assessment tool for monitoring progress on the implementation of the Long-term Conditions NSF. This self assessment tool has been designed by the Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP).

The Introduction provides a summary of the key evidence and rationale for health and social care organisations to improve the quality of their information provision to people with neurological and other long-term conditions. A fuller version of this is also available to download.  

Section one looks at how to set up systems to ensure comprehensive, good quality information provision for people with long-term neurological conditions and their carers. This includes:

• guidelines for developing a policy on information provision within an organisation or department, and suggestions of issues to think about when organising and auditing the provision of information.
• what is good quality information and how to assess and assure it.

Section two focuses on providing a named contact from whom people can get information (question 9 on the CSIP tool).  

Section three provides support for developing good quality, culturally appropriate information about local services and sources of support for people with long-term neurological conditions (question 13 on the CSIP tool), including an outline of a local information resource.  

Section four looks at providing people with good quality, culturally appropriate information about their condition and how best to manage it (question 14 on the CSIP tool). 

Section five provides sources of support to enable health and social carer professionals provide people with good quality and culturally appropriate information about wider social inclusion (question 15 on the CSIP tool).  

Section six looks at providing people with information at diagnosis and on an ongoing basis as appropriate to their needs and wishes (question 16 on the CSIP tool). This includes tools to help assess people’s information needs and manage the information process with individuals.

Throughout the toolkit there are links to useful organisations and sources of information reflecting the issues that people affected by neurological conditions were concerned to access information about.

Please note that by clicking on the 'text resize' link on the top right of each page, you can adjust the size of the text to suit you. You can also click on the 'Easy read version' link.