Service guidance on Supportive and Palliative Care is being developed for use in the NHS in England and Wales. Service guidance is intended primarily for those who commission cancer services (although it is also extensively used by those involved in service delivery) and it is therefore wider in scope, and different from, conventional clinical guidelines. However the process for developing cancer service guidance is similar to that used for developing clinical guidelines. For more information on NICE's guideline development process, click here.

The consultation documents
The document presented here has been prepared for the first round of consultation with the stakeholders registered for this guideline topic.

Note that the provisional service guidance recommendations presented here do not constitute the Institute's formal guidance on this topic. The recommendations are provisional and may change after consultation.

The full version describes the evidence and views that have been considered, and sets out the provisional service guidance recommendations that have been developed - these may have been revised in the light of comments made during the first consultation period.

The evidence review is a summary of the evidence used to develop the guidance.

The economic analysis is an analysis of the potential economic impact of the guidance.

Points to consider during the consultation
During this consultation period, you may want to comment on:

1. Potential inconsistencies or any disagreement with the developer's interpretation of evidence
2. The practical value of the provisional recommendations
3. Style and format; for example, you may consider that the information could be made more readable and easy to follow.

How to comment on the documents
The Institute is now inviting comments from the registered stakeholders for this guideline. Although individuals may comment on these documents, we advise you to contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to that organisation. The registered stakeholders for this service guidance are listed on this website.

Comments made on these documents by registered stakeholders will be posted on the NICE website together with the name of the organisation that submitted the comments. Informative comments from individuals or non-registered stakeholders will be summarised and the summary will also be posted on the website.

Please do not include personal medical information about yourself or another person from which your or the person's identity could be ascertained.

Send your comments using the proforma via email to: cancersupportive@nice.nhs.uk . Alternatively you can send the proforma on a disk, marked 'Guidelines - Supportive and Palliative care' to: Sarah Barley National Institute for Clinical Excellence, MidCity Place, 71 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6NA.

Please be clear whether your comments refer to the full guideline, the short version or the lay version.

More information on other cancer service guidance or guidelines that have been produced or are in development is also available from this site.