Our expert searchers can help save you time and ensure you find high-quality evidence to support your evidence-based practice. Whether you’re looking to improve a patient care pathway, support a research project, update a policy or develop a service improvement plan, we’ll help you find the evidence you need.
This is a free service provided to all staff, and you can have your search set up as an alert to email you details of new publications on a monthly or weekly basis.
Timescales and descriptions are for guidance only. If a search is needed urgently for patient care, we will do everything we can to meet your deadline. If you need further information, or are not sure that what type of search you need, please speak to one of our librarians.
For example: if you need a brief overview of a topic or area of interest as a refresher, or if you are are new to the subject.
What you can expect from us: links to a selection of key articles or summaries from a clinical decision support tool such as BMJ Best Practice or Up-to-Date. A simple search of an appropriate database may also be carried out if there is limited evidence available from initial sources. Relevant results can be presented as a PDF or Word document.
Timescale: this type of search may take one or two weeks.
For example: patient care, teaching, presentations and general CPD.
What you can expect from us: relevant results can be presented as a PDF or Word document or Excel spreadsheet. A summary of sources searched can also be provided.
Timescale: this type of search may take up to two weeks.
For example: searches to support all types of literature review such as rapid reviews, scoping reviews, business cases, QI Projects, service reviews and guideline reviews.
What you can expect from us: the searches carried out may be systematic and reviews may follow guidelines or checklists (PRISMA Scoping or JBI Scoping) but overall methodology is generally less strict than for a systematic review to accommodate the shorter timescales. We will provide a list of results from searches in relevant databases. Search filters and limits may be used to reduce the number of results. Results are presented as a PDF/Word document, Excel spreadsheet or as a file that can be imported into reference management software, depending on your preference and the number of results retrieved. A report summarising the sources searched and numbers of results retrieved will also be provided. The numbers of results retrieved can vary depending on how broad the research question is but might range from tens to a few thousand.
Timescale: this type of search may up to three weeks.
If you need further information, or are not sure that what type of review is best for you, please read this guide or speak to one of our librarians.
A systematic review systematically and transparently collects and analyses existing evidence on a specific question. They aim to compare, evaluate, and synthesise all the available evidence to answer the question of interest. They are time-intensive and can take several months, or sometimes years, to complete and may result in thousands of references to screen.
They are the most commonly referred to type of evidence synthesis and are sometimes confused as a blanket term for other types of review. They follow strict rules such as the PRISMA guideline, the Cochrane Handbook or the JBI Manual.
What you can expect from us: a set of deduplicated results from all appropriate databases and sources searched, in a format that can be directly imported into your reference management software. A report summarising the databases and sources searched and numbers of results retrieved from each will also be provided.
Timescale: this type of search usually takes at least three weeks.
If you need further information, or are not sure that what type of review is best for you, please read this guide or speak to one of our librarians.
To request a search you will need an OpenAthens account.
Evidence and current awareness updates can provide highly tailored, individual updates of newly published health care information in your areas of interest.
Tell Knowledge and Library Services about your areas of interest - you can be as broad or as detailed as you like - and how often you would like to be updated. Your evidence update will be personally configured by a professional librarian to ensure you only receive relevant, high-quality information.
To request updates you will need an OpenAthens account.
You might also be interested in subscribing to the following newsletter from external bodies which cover Barts Health priority areas:
Books, reports, journal articles, non-book media such as DVDs which are not held on local sites can be obtained from a network of health libraries and national collections.
Before requesting a journal article, please check whether it is available by searching on LibKey.io below. If the journal article is not available via LibKey.io or the discovery platform, you should contact us for assistance or complete an article request form.
For books that are not available in our collection, please make a request using the form below.
Please note, you must be a member of Barts Health Knowledge and Library Services in order to access this service. If you are not currently a member, you will be contacted and asked to join. Most items will be free, but if we have to go to British Library, there may be a charge on collection. If you need to speak to someone about your request, please contact us.