Interim process guide for a more proportionate approach to quality standard development

Prioritising areas for quality improvement:

Where a proportionate approach is required to prioritise areas for quality improvement, a working group may be convened in place of a full quality standards advisory committee (QSAC) meeting. The working group will have the same remit as the full QSAC.

The working group will be chaired by an existing NICE committee chair and contain representation from the QSAC committee. The membership of the working group will be drawn from existing quality standard and guideline expert representative and committee standing members.

The needs of the working group are such that an appropriate spread of members' experience and expertise should be represented at each meeting. If, in the view of the chair, the spread of experience and expertise is inappropriate for the business under consideration, the meeting may be suspended or adjourned until a later date.

If the working group concludes that it cannot make a decision on the quality standard content this will result in a full committee meeting.

Where a subset of the committee has been convened in place of a full committee meeting to agree prioritised areas of care, the same group will be convened in place of a full committee meeting to review the full set of consultation comments.

Reviewing consultation feedback

In some instances, such as where consultation comments demonstrate a high degree of agreement with the draft quality standard, neither a full committee meeting, nor a working group will be convened to review the consultation comments. The committee will instead review the consultation comments and share any feedback with the NICE team and the chair via email.

If the committee chair concludes that further committee input is required to refine the quality standard based on the consultation comments, this will result in either a full committee meeting or a working group meeting with a subset of the committee.

Utilisation of the guideline committee (GC)

The guideline committee (GC) may be utilised to prioritise areas for quality improvement and review consultation feedback, in place of a full quality standards advisory committee (QSAC) meeting. Representation from the QSAC committee will be agreed as required for the development of the Quality Standard.

This approach may be undertaken as part of a testing and refining process to incorporate quality standard statements into NICE guidelines, and will support NICE's ambitions to integrate NICE guidance, making it easier for users to find all guidance about a condition.