As Hilary Spiers points out, supporting provision of clear information for patients is an important part of the patient partnership strategy. As part of that, the NHS Executive is funding the Centre for Health Information Quality.

Based at the Help for Health Trust in Winchester, the centre acts as a clearing-house on all aspects of good quality patient information. Launched by health minister Baroness Jay in November, the centre has three years' funding.

We maintain a database of people in the NHS working on patient information initiatives, to support networking good practice and avoid re-inventing the wheel. There is also a database of references to articles, reports and evaluations of patient information work. We are developing a training programme on identifying and producing good quality patient information. This is being piloted with the Health Information Service, a trust, and local self-help groups.

Our first Topic Bulletin (available free, on our web site) describes tools for checking readability and information content. Our second bulletin (out later this month) covers quality of health information on the Internet. We are using these tools to begin testing patient information materials.

We support Hilary Spiers and the Plain English Campaign's view that good quality patient information should be clearly communicated and involve patients in its production. Good information should be up-to-date, unbiased and based on the best research knowledge.

Bob Gann,

Director,

Centre for Health Information Quality,

Winchester.