Q. How do I see all the electronic resources available to me?

A. HILO links to national and London-wide eresources, however, there may be additional resources available to you locally. Login to MyAthens with your NHS Athens username and password account to see a full list of electronic resources available. Additional resources may be available locally which do not use Athens. Please contact your local healthcare library.

Q. How do I access the electronic resources linked from HILO?

A. Some of the electronic resources are freely available. HILO specifies if an NHS Athens username and password is required.

Q. My Athens account seems to have stopped working. Help!

A. The simplest route to solving Athens issues is to contact your local healthcare librarian or local Athens Administrator will be able to help you. They will be able to confirm your Athens details or help you get set up again.  Please do not try to reregister as the system does not accept duplicate email addresses.

Q. I'm moving organisations.  Can I still use the same Athens username?

A.To change your organisation go the NHS Evidence Journals and Databases section  on www.evidence.nhs.uklog in with NHS Athens and next to the Hello message across the top of the screen you will see a link to My Account.

When you submit a request to change organisation you will be prompted to confirm your password and asked to provide contact details of your new location. Your existing account will be de-activated and an automated email will be sent to you containing an activation link. Only after clicking this link will the change be made.

When you change your email address you will be sent an email with an activation code. This will expire after 2 days if you do not activate your account. If, for some reason, you miss the 2 day expiry limit, your account is not de-activated so your old login details will allow you to login and make the change request again. The change only takes effect once activated through the link in the email.

Q. Where do I start with all these different resources?

A. Help information is generally available within each of the resources so this can be worth a look. Your local healthcare librarian will be glad to help you choose the right resource for your information needs and can direct you to further relevant training.

Q. How do I get hold of the fulltext of this article?

A. If you are tracking down an article for which you have the reference we would recommend you access MyJournals. You must log in with your NHS Athens username and password to see all the journals available to you. 

If you lack a full reference then you may find it easier to search using the healthcare databases (e.g. MEDLINE, CINAHL etc). These databases will link to full-text articles available with NHS Athens.

If you can't find the journal article that you want on the MyJournals list or via the databases, your local health library may be able to get an article for you from another library

Q. How do I carry out a quick search for evidence?

A. There are a number of resources you can use to search across a range of summaries of evidence (reviews, guidelines etc). For example, NHS Evidence and Trip Database which are freely available.
Other freely available resources, for example The Cochrane Library, provide access to specific types of summary. The Map of Medicine provides access to evidence-based care pathways.

More details about these resources are available on the Search for Evidence page.

For further advice on searching, please contact your local healthcare library.

Q. How do I carry out a search for journal articles?

A. You need to search a healthcare database (e.g. MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE) to find journal articles. Access to these databases requires an NHS Athens username and password. Please contact your local healthcare library for advice on searching.

Q. How do I see all the electronic resources available to me?

A. There are databases and journals that are purchased by your local NHS library or Trust which are not shown here. These may be found by logging into My Library or MyAthens. To see the list of resources in My Library, scroll down to My Athens Resources. If using MyAthens, select the resources tab and then the local resources tab. Please note: that the description of what is accessible under the suppliers links can be inaccurate, as only a subset of what is available may have been purchased locally.

Q. How do I find out if a book is available?

A. You can search for nationally purchased eBooks (NHS Athens username and password required).  Please note this may not contain eBooks which are purchased locally.  Please contact your local healthcare library for details of eBooks and print books held locally. If your local healthcare library does not hold a book, they will be able to advise you on how to access it.

If your question is not answered on this page - please get in touch with your local healthcare librarian who will be glad to help