Corporate document
About this framework
Who is the framework for?
The framework is for people who use healthcare services and healthcare professionals. It helps them identify and understand the elements of a good quality patient decision aid (PDA), providing a clear guide to the content they should expect and how content should be presented.
The framework also supports those commissioning, developing, assuring or reviewing PDAs by including an easy-to-use self-assessment tool. This helps show how they have met standards essential in a PDA and identify further standards that might enhance the quality of their process or product.
What does this framework include?
The framework is divided into 2 sets of standards – essential and enhanced. Each set covers:
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the content of a PDA and its presentation, and
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the process for developing the PDA, including supporting information published alongside it to assess quality, rigour and reliability.
There are notes explaining each standard in the framework.
Essential standards
These are the fundamental requirements for a PDA. It cannot be considered a PDA if it does not meet these standards, and is high enough quality to use in practice if it does meet them.
Enhanced standards
These are additional to the essential standards and indicate that the PDA aims to be of the highest quality. Some of these additional standards may not apply to all PDAs.