The Centre is being funded by the NHS Executive from Patient Partnership funds for three years. It is intended that it will be self-funding by March 2000. The Centre will be a resource for producers and providers of information for patients. It is not intended as an enquiry service for patients themselves. The Centre's remit is "To act as a source of expertise and knowledge for the NHS and patient organisations aimed at improving the provision of good quality evidence based patient information." The Centre Director is Bob Gann who has an international reputation and has been involved in much collaborative work with the Department through his Help for Health Trust in Winchester, where the Centre for Health Information Quality is also based.

Services available to producers and providers of information include:

• information on quality tools including readability scores, checklists for appraisal of content etc.

• database of information for patients which has been reviewed using quality tools.

• register of people working on production and provision of information for patients.

• database of references to research and practice in consumer health information.

• training programme to help develop skills in production of high quality evidence based information for patients

• newsletter, topic bulletins and Internet web-site