NHS Supply2Health provides two approaches to searching for advertisements and contract awards in two ways.
· Simple search lets you find words or phrases anywhere in the document.
· Structured searching uses NHS Supply2Health fields and terminology to look for very specific descriptions.
The NHS Supply2Health “Demonstration Advertisement” is always displayed on the list of results so that you can see what an advertisement looks like and to help you use structured searches.
1. Access the website at www.supply2health.nhs.uk
2. “Search” appears at the bottom of the home page. You may need to scroll down to see it.
3. Type a term to look for into the text box and click on “Search”. This will find all documents that contain that term. Note that searching works best on whole words (you may get a suggestion if Search cannot find your term).
4. You can use several words to find documents that contain all of the terms you type
5. Click “Search”.
6. When the results appear you can click on the title of any document that interests you to view it.
7. After looking at a document you can use the “back” button to return to the list of matches.
- 8. You can always get to Search by using the “Search Supply2Health” button at the top of the menu on the left of the page.
Structured searches let you specify exactly what to look for in each of the fields on an advertisement.
1. The results page for a Simple Search will show the Structured Search menu on the right.
2. If you want to go directly to Structured Search it can be found on the menu on the left of any Supply2Health page.
3. On the right hand side of the Structured Search page you will see a list of fields. The five most frequent terms in that field are shown, with a number next to the term that tells you how many documents contain that term. (There will always be at least one as the “Demonstration Advertisement” is always found).
4. If you want to see the full list of terms in a field, click on the “double down-arrow” button at the top right next to the name of the field. To collapse the list again, click on the same button (it will now be a “double up-arrow”).
5. Select one or more terms using the check boxes. A search will be built up that will find documents that contain any of the terms in a field (e.g. “Investigation” or “Screening”).
6. You can deselect a term by clicking on the box next to it.
7. If you choose terms from different fields the search will find only documents that have a match for each field (e.g. “Investigation” or “Screening” from “Care Type” and “Primary care” from “Service Setting”).
8. Having selected the terms you want to find, click the “Search” button at the top of the page.
9. A new set of results is shown. The list of fields and terms on the right will be shorter, giving the only remaining options. If there are no further refinements, no fields or terms will be shown
10. If the results list is too long, you can select more terms from the list on the right to narrow it down.
1. You can look for ranges of documents by date or contract value by clicking on “Advanced Search” next to the “Search” button.
2. This takes you to a new page where you can specify ranges for dates and contract values and search the Service Requirement field.
3. Set the upper and lower limits for whichever dates or values are of interest and then click the Search button.
If you are a Registered User of NHS Supply2Health you can set up email alerts based on your searches.
1. Define a search for the terms that interest you, using Simple or Structured Search.
2. If you want to search for any of a set of terms in a field, e.g. “Commissioners”, you can tick all the ones that interest you, and if any one of these matches you will be alerted. Ticking all of the terms in a field is the same as choosing none, and is quicker to do.
3. Once you are happy, click on “Alert me” which is below the “Search” button near the top of the page.
4. Follow the instructions to specify how often you want alerts and what kind of notification you need.
5. If you wish to modify or delete your alerts, you can see your alerts by using the “Manage my alerts” link on the alerts page.