Report: Getting advice (page 19 of 28)
There are a number of sources of advice on how best to treat head lice. Many parents will speak to their local surgery or pharmacist. Others will access the Internet for information.
Boots is the UK’s largest high street chemist. Most branches carry a wide range of the most popular head lice treatments. Many Boots pharmacists are mothers who have experienced the problem themselves. And they tend to be refreshingly candid about the ineffectiveness of the head lice lotions they sell.
A visit to the local surgery will mean parents can obtain a free prescription for any infected children. But faced with over-crowded waiting rooms and the difficulty of making appointments, many parents prefer to turn to NHS Direct for advice – especially those with access to the Internet.
But when we tried searching the NHS Direct website it was being so over-used, it couldn’t provide any useful information. We didn’t fare any better using the NHS Direct phone line. They wouldn’t offer any guidance on how to diagnose or treat head lice, suggesting instead that we look at a number of Internet sites.
The most comprehensive of these websites – www.besttreatments.co.uk – has a whole section on head lice. The introduction page states: “We’ve brought together the best research about head lice and weighed up the evidence about how to treat them. You can use this information to talk to your doctor and decide which treatments are best for you.”
