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Poisons information services have operated in the UK since the 1960s. Information was originally provided by telephone, but with increasing numbers of calls, many about relatively straightforward poisons, a decision was made in Scotland in the early 1980s to use the then new technology of Viewdata to provide a computer information database to health professionals. This service went on line in 1983 and provided first line information about the management of poisoning to registered NHS users. 1 This service, TOXBASE, subsequently became the first line poisons information database of the National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) for the whole of the UK. Since its inception TOXBASE has been available free of charge to registered users within the National Health Service, and by 1999 contained information on approximately 12 000 substances and products. In addition a number of monographs had been written for TOXBASE on specific aspects of poisons management such as paediatric poisoning, slang drug names and poisoning in pregnancy.
At the beginning of 1999 more than 500 users were registered on the system. The software and computers that had run it since its inception were by then obsolete and the decision was made within the National Poisons Information Service to move TOXBASE to a compatible system, to enable internet access ( http://www.spib.axl.co.uk ). 2 The process of conversion to the new technology was conducted over the spring and summer of 1999 and the internet system went live in August of that year. At that time all current users of the Viewdata system were automatically registered on the new internet version.
Since then publicity aimed at increasing the awareness of health service employees about TOXBASE availability has been carried out in a variety of ways, including letters to the medical directors of all hospitals and to accident and emergency (A&E) departments and minor injuries units. In addition study days have been arranged for individual groups of doctors and nurses. Indirect publicity was obtained from articles in the medical press 3 and information on other web sites ( http://www.doh.gov.uk ; http://www.doctors.net.uk ; http://www.show.scot.nhs.uk/spib ). The main user groups are hospital departments, principally A&E departments, GP surgeries and departments of public health. In this article we describe a study to assess the uptake of TOXBASE since the...