Your health, your choices...

... is the strapline of the NHS Choices initiative, designed to enable people to make informed decisions about their lifestyle and health care. Central to the initiative is a one-stop web portal aggregating health information for use by patients, the public and health professionals.

It's early days but the website is looking pretty good and plans are in place to make this a sustainable service and not another "flavour of the month" short-lived government information initiative. The site is a good mix of magazine-style articles, news commentaries, user feedback, and detailed information. Proper safeguards are in place to authenticate the information and moderate the user comments. The next phase of development - around more personalisation of information - is being planned. And the aspirations - for quality, accessibility and inclusivity - are encouragingly high.

The success and sustainability of NHS Choices depends on a multi-channel and multi-agency strategy. I'm not sure if delivering "safe sex" text messages to youngsters out clubbing in Hull is going to do the trick - but linking up with libraries certainly is. That's why CILIP is taking steps to connect the NHS Choices team with colleagues across the wider LIS domain - beginning, through the Society of Chief Librarians, with public libraries.

Have a look at the site - www.nhs.uk - and tell me what you think. I'm on the NHS Choices User Council (first meeting last Thursday and described by Bob Gann as "the moral guardian of process" in terms of ensuring that NHS Choices does its job properly) so I'm in a good position to feed your views back to Bob and his colleagues.

Public health is one of CILIP's priority areas for policy development and NHS Choices seems like a big step in the right direction. I look forward to learning more as my term on the User Council continues.