Evidence search service for NHS staff

Imperial College London Library offers a free evidence search service to eligible NHS staff working for trusts entitled to full membership of the Library, as specified on the membership webpage. It is not available to NHS placement students.  

The service provides expert searches carried out by the NHS support librarians to inform patient care, service improvement, research activity and clinical teaching.  

We do not carry out evidence searches for assessed academic work or commercial research, and cannot commit to doing the full searches for systematic reviews. If your request relates to assessed work or a systematic review, please instead contact your NHS support librarian for training and guidance on the literature search process. 

Evidence search requests are submitted and managed in KnowledgeShare, which you can access with your OpenAthens account. To submit a search request, log in to KnowledgeShare with your OpenAthens details, open the Evidence tab and fill in the form on the “Request an Evidence Search” page.   

Please specify how urgent the search is on the request form, giving a date by which you require the results. Whilst we will endeavour to complete searches within the deadline requested, we cannot guarantee search results will be received within this date and you may be contacted to establish a more realistic timeframe. Providing as much detail as possible in your search request and responding quickly to any queries from the librarian carrying out the search will help to prevent delays. 

Whilst care will be taken in the selection of the materials included in evidence search results, the Library is not responsible for the content or the accuracy of the research information provided. The Library is not and will not be held responsible or liable for any omissions to pertinent research information not included as part of the results of any evidence search. 

Any usage or reproduction of the search should acknowledge the work of the librarian that produced it, and they should be kept informed of any resulting publications. NHS staff who receive a search should complete the feedback form within KnowledgeShare. 

If you have any further questions please contact your NHS support librarian.