Search Databases
On this page you will find links to various health databases. Databases can provide access to journal articles, systematic reviews, reports, guidelines etc so please choose a database that suits your information need (please refer to the database descriptions provided below).
Key databases:
NICE Healthcare Databases (Guide) (Thesaurus Mapping)
The redesigned NICE Healthcare Databases include AMED (Allied and Complementary Medicine), BNI (British Nursing Index), Cinahl (American nursing database), HMIC (health policy and management, includes DHData and King's Fund), Embase (strong in pharmacology), EMCARE (Nursing), Medline (leading biomedical database), PsycInfo (psychiatry). NHS OpenAthens password required.
How to run a basic search:
View step-by-step 'how to' videos here.
Knowledge and Library Hub (Guide)
Search for journals, books and more.
Premier evidence based database. Includes systematic reviews and references for randomised controlled trials.
More to explore:
ClinicalKey
ClinicalKey provides access to a large collection of Elsevier published medical and surgical resources including over 1000 ebooks and 600 journals. NHS OpenAthens password required.
Biomed Central
This database includes around 230 peer reviewed journals covering the areas of Science, Technology and Medicine. Biomed journals are all open access, i.e. freely available from the time of publication.
UK Data Service
A unified point of access to data from Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS), Census Programme, Secure Data Service and others.
Midirs
Premier midwifery website. Access to the database is only available to subscribers.
NICE Evidence Search (previously NHS Evidence)
NICE search resource for freely available health information.Contains guidelines, evidence based resources, patient information and lots more.
PEDro
Australian database for physiotherapists. Provides abstracts of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews in physiotherapy.
Pubmed
Leading biomedical database of over 21 million citations from 1966 onwards. We recommend using the alternative version (Medline) from the NHS Evidence Healthcare Databases (a link to which can be found at the top of this page).
Alternative entry into PubMed shows which journals are NHS full text journals in search results. (NHS Athens username and password required to access journal articles).
Social Care Online
Social care database produced by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Includes references to reports, journal articles, websites and more.
TRIP Database (Turning Research into Practice)
Searches a number of evaluated resources for evidence based information. Search sources include: the Cochrane Library, NICE, BestBETS, Prodigy, Department of Health etc.