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Health and Social Care

Referencing introduction

In academic writing, it's essential that you cite (state) your sources of information and ideas. To ensure readers know where you found the information you must include references. 

You need to reference all the sources that you use in your assignments - by citing them in the main body of your assignment (an in-text reference) and compiling a full reference list at the end of your work. 

 

Referencing links

A number of guides are available to help you get to grips with referencing:

Anonymised Documents

In Text

…at NHS Trust A (2017) the procedures for discharge are clearly drawn up.....

Reference List

  • ANONYMISED TRUST, Year of publication. Title of document.  City or County where published ( leave out if this could identify source): Anonymised Trust [unpublished]
  • NHS TRUST A, 2017. Guidelines for discharge from hospital. Hampshire: NHS Trust A [unpublished]
  • NHS TRUST A, 2017. Guidelines for discharge from hospital.  NHS Trust A [unpublished]

Nursing and Midwifery Council: Code of Practice

This is how you would reference the NMC Code of Practice

Reference list

NURSING AND MIDWIFERY COUNCIL, 2018. The Code: Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives and nursing associates.  London: Nursing and Midwifery Council [viewed 1 June 2025]. Available from: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/nmc-publications/nmc-code.pdf

Your in-text reference would would be:

....(Nursing and Midwifery Council 2018) or The Nursing and Midwifery Council (2018).....

RefWorks

RefWorks is a tool to help you to manage your references. You can export references directly from the library catalogue, databases and even Google Scholar directly into RefWorks and format them into Harvard Solent or other styles as required.

If you use RefWorks it will do most of the work for you, but it will make mistakes as it can only work with the data it can see so check the output against the Harvard Solent Referencing Guide before submitting your assignments.

Visit the RefWorks LibGuide for help in setting up your account and using the functionality of this really useful tool.