26th March 2025
The National Knowledge and Library Services team at NHS England funds subscriptions to a collection of digital knowledge resources that is free at the point of use for all staff and learners across the NHS in England. This collection includes databases (such as Medline, CINAHL and Embase), e-journals and e-books, and BMJ Best Practice and the Royal Marsden Manual. Due to a national budget reduction of £1.7million for 2025/26 a difficult decision has been taken to cancel the contracts for some of the existing content.
Having reviewed usage figures, value for money, and the availability of content in each of the packages, as well as feedback from clinical stakeholders, the following will be removed from the national collection from the 1 July 2025:
- ProQuest (for resources including AMED, British Nursing Index, Health Research Premium Collection, PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES)
- Oxford University Press (for Handbooks and Textbooks collection and Specialist Handbooks)
All other national content will remain available to all eligible users. This includes:
- BMJ Best Practice and BMJ e-journals
- EBSCO databases: CINAHL, Medline and Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection
- Royal Marsden Manual of Clinical Nursing Procedures
- Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines
- Ovid databases: Embase, Emcare, Medline, HMIC and Social Policy & Practice
- Trip Pro
- Cochrane Library, CKS, BNF, BNFc and NHS OpenAthens (all provided and funded by NICE)
- Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines
- Ovid databases: Embase, Emcare, Medline, HMIC and Social Policy & Practice
- Plus, the supporting infrastructure, like the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub to simplify access.
We realise how disappointing this news will be for you and your colleagues that rely upon these resources to inform their practice.
If you would like to feedback about this announcement, please use this form explaining how this change is impacting upon the learning, research and direct patient care undertaken by you, colleagues and learners across your organisation.
You can find out more details by referring to the FAQs below.
General FAQs
Why is this change happening?
NHS England budgets for 2025-6 have been significantly reduced so that more money can be passed to front-line services. For the national Knowledge and Library Services team, this has meant a cut of £1.7 million which is around 25% of the total national Knowledge and Library Services budget. Reductions in budgets have already led to difficult choices to pause, stop or reshape the work of the national Knowledge and Library Services team.
How was the decision made to cancel this content rather than other products?
Several options were considered for saving this money. We decided to prioritise maintaining the national system infrastructure on which all knowledge and library services depend. This meant that the only place we could make a significant saving was on the on the budget for the National Core Content Collection.
We sought advice from colleagues at NICE, who manage the National Core Content Collection contracts on our behalf, about the legal practicalities of terminating any of our contracts. While we procure the whole collection together, we contract individually with suppliers although these contracts often include a bundle of content from one supplier. NICE confirmed that we could terminate individual contracts with suppliers, giving 90 days’ notice. However, within each contract there could be no cherry-picking of specific resources: the whole contract would need to be terminated.
Next, we reviewed usage figures and value for money for each of the products. This showed that some products have declining usage or lower than expected use. There was also a wide range of cost per use with some products not delivering value for money.
Because the National Core Content Collection includes different types of products (clinical decision support, databases, e-books and e-journals) we went back to the user survey we conducted during the original procurement to see what resources were prioritised by users. We also asked clinical stakeholders in NHS England for a steer on the relative impact of losing different packages.
As a result of these enquiries, we decided to cancel the contracts with Oxford University Press and ProQuest.
What alternative resources in the remaining collection should I use instead?
There is significant overlap between the database subscriptions that are being cancelled (AMED, British Nursing Index and PsycINFO) and resources which are being retained. There is also some overlap between Health Research Premium Collection and other full-text collections which some knowledge and library services buy locally. However, we recognise that some of the resource subscriptions being cancelled are unique and that losing universal access to any content is a challenge.
You can find more information about the retained National Core Content Collection on our website. To find out more about additional resources available at a local level contact your local NHS Knowledge and Library Service.
How does this impact on searching for mental health information?
Cancelling the PsycINFO subscription was a very difficult decision but it was unavoidable given the scale of the savings required. The nature of the ProQuest contract, which includes both databases and full text resources, means that we cannot cancel some resources while retaining others.
Although PsycINFO is seen as an essential resource for people searching for mental health information, we found it is currently searched less than either HMIC or Social Policy & Practice.
We also found a lot of overlap between PsycINFO and other databases in the collection including Medline, Embase, CINAHL and Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection. Of the 2,366 journals indexed in PsycINFO, 1330 are also indexed by other databases in the collection.
Will you reprocure these collections next year?
It is still our aim to expand the range of the National Core Content Collection because we know this delivers equity of access and cost effectiveness for the system.
While NHS England is going through organisational change no decisions will be made about future content procurement.
Is this related to the announced abolition of NHS England?
Budget setting for 2025-6 is independent of the announcement about NHS England being abolished. However, there have been knock-on effects from the organisational change which have complicated the process
Is there any chance of this decision being reversed?
No, this decision will not be reversed.
Who should I speak to with my concerns about this decision?
Your feedback on this decision is welcome. Please use this form to send your comments or contact england.kfh@nhs.net
Additional FAQs for NHS Knowledge and Library Staff
Can I replace these national resources by buying them locally for my organisation?
There are no contractual restrictions on services purchasing these resources locally.
You are encouraged to use the NICE Framework for any purchase. For a refresher about how to do this, take a look at these videos.
You can buy some of the cancelled resources as a direct award from the Framework as they are only available from 1 supplier. Of the cancelled services this includes HRPC and BNI from ProQuest, and the OUP e-books. You can download a pre-populated Call Off Order Form to buy these titles from ProQuest from the Framework website. A Form to use when buying from OUP will be added shortly.
The remaining cancelled resources are available to buy from several suppliers on the Framework. For AMED, Medline, PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES, you need to run a competition between suppliers.
Please follow guidance and processes from your local procurement team.
If you make arrangements to purchase this content locally, please notify us via the service desk so there is no inadvertent deletion of this local content from national systems.
What data is available to help me decide what to buy locally?
PsycINFO: shows whether the indexed journals are also indexed by other nationally purchased databases.
Health Research Premium Collection (HRPC): usage in 2024 by title and organisation. Also includes searches of PsycINFO by organisation for July-December 2024.
See also the holdings available in NHS libraries for the titles in HRPC with 100 or more downloads. Includes totals for all holdings as well as those with current coverage.
Oxford University Press (OUP) e-books: usage by title and organisation for the period January 2022 – February 2025.
This data may be found in the NHS Knowledge for Healthcare FutureNHS workspace. You will need to register for FutureNHS and join the workspace.
What arrangements will there be to support consortia purchase?
If you are in a position to consider local purchasing of this content, we suggest reaching out to other knowledge and library services to see if a consortium deal can be negotiated with suppliers.
Oxford University Press have already shown an interest in offering a consortia deal. The national Knowledge and Library Services team are following up on this and will share information as soon as possible.
What changes do I need to make locally to systems (the Hub / Holdings and Link Manager (HLM), websites, Library Management Systems)?
The national team will be making the updates to the HLM, the bottom branding in the Hub and NHS England websites www.library.nhs.uk/https://library.hee.nhs.uk/knowledge-staff and Knowledge for Healthcare Future NHS Workspace.
We will also be liaising with regional library management system administrators to remove Oxford University Press (OUP) e-books.
If you have an independent library management system, you will need to remove the OUP collection. A list will be provided for reference.
If you make arrangements to purchase any of this content locally it is imperative that you inform the service desk so there is no inadvertent deletion of this local content from national systems.
Why are we only finding out about this now? I’ve already done my resource renewals for this year.
We appreciate that the timing of this news is extremely difficult. Confirmation of the 2025-6 budget allocation was delayed by organisational changes at NHS England leaving very little time to evaluate options before formal notice needed to be given to Oxford University Press and ProQuest to terminate the contracts.
Is there archival access to Oxford University Press (OUP) e-books based on the period previously subscribed?
No. The contract is a subscription model which does not include archival access. Once the contract ends, we will lose all access.
What does the loss of Health Research Premium Collection mean for the INCDocs reciprocal interlibrary loan and document supply scheme for NHS libraries in England?
Health Research Premium Collection (HRPC) is a collection of nearly 7000 full text e-journals. Although there is overlap with other collections which are often bought locally, losing access to HRPC will likely lead to an increase in document supply requests. Many of these will be fulfilled through INCDocs but some may need to be sourced through suppliers such as Reprints Desk. We will be monitoring request rates as part of our evaluation of these changes to establish the impact on both knowledge and library services staff and users.
What assurance can you give about the various elements of the national system infrastructure which are due for reprocurement?
Our priority is to maintain the national infrastructure on which all national and local services rely. We will reprocure library management system contracts in 2025-6. The discovery layer and associated systems will be reprocured the following year.
What should I do with our marketing materials? Will we get new ones?
Marketing materials will be reviewed and updated. Digital collateral will be circulated with options for local printing. These can be accessed via the NHS Knowledge for Healthcare Future NHS Workspace. We aim to complete these updates by June 2025.
We will add to these FAQs as other questions arise.