A clinical practice guideline on Suspected cancer is being developed for use in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Registered stakeholders for this guideline are invited to comment on the provisional recommendations. Individuals and organisations not registered as stakeholders are not able to comment. We recommend that you register as a stakeholder or contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to them.

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

An embargoed version of the final guideline will be available to stakeholder organisations that comment during this consultation. Stakeholders must respond to the consultation in order to receive a confidentiality form to sign. The response needn’t be formal comments, an email to say ‘no comment’ will suffice. Respondents will receive a confidentiality form after the consultation closes.

The embargoed version will be released a week before the official publication and will be subject to the signing of the confidentiality form. Only stakeholder organisations that return a signed confidentiality form (signed by hand, not electronically) returned either by email or post will receive the embargoed guideline 1 week before the official publication.

Consultation dates: 20 November 2014 – 9 January 2015

Consultation documents:

• Full version
• Appendices
• NICE version
• Comments proforma

The full version describes the evidence and views that have been considered, and sets out the provisional recommendations that have been developed.

The NICE version presents the provisional recommendations only with some brief supporting information.

Points to consider in the consultation:

Full version

• Points or areas that are not covered, but which appear to fall within the scope of the guideline
• Potential inconsistencies or any disagreement with the Guideline Development Groups interpretation of the evidence
• The practical value of the provisional recommendations.

NICE version

• Issues of style and format; for example, stakeholders may feel that the information could be made more readable and easy to follow.

General

Do you think this guidance could be changed to better promote equality of opportunity relating to age, disability, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation or socio-economic status?

In answering this question, please include details of:

• Which particular parts of the guidance you think affect equality of opportunity?
• Why and how you think equality of opportunity is affected?

Economic modelling

• The Developers have produced an economic model in support of this guideline which is available for stakeholders on request. Stakeholders must make requests for a copy of the model in writing and agree to and sign a confidentiality agreement. If you wish to access an executable model for this guideline please contact Rfsc@nice.nhs.uk for further information.

How to submit your comments:

Responses to the draft guideline documents must be submitted using the comments proforma  (Word version only, PDFs not accepted) ensuring all relevant fields are completed.

Completed comment proformas must be returned to Rfsc@nice.nhs.uk by 5pm on Friday 9 January 2015 at the very latest in order to be considered.

The Institute is unable to accept:

• Comments from non-registered organisations / individuals – if you wish your comments to be considered please register your organisation as a stakeholder via the NICE website or contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to them
• Comments received after the consultation deadline (5pm)
• Comments that are not on the correct proforma
•  More than one response per stakeholder organisation
• Confidential information or other material that you would not wish to be made public
• Personal medical information about yourself or another person from which your or the person’s identity could be ascertained

What will happen to your comments:

• All eligible comments  will be sent to the developers at the end of the consultation
• Comments from registered stakeholders and nominated expert reviewers ONLY will be formally responded to by the developers and posted on the NICE website at the time of the pre-publication check
• No action will be taken upon receipt of personal, individual comments, comments from non-registered organisations and late comments
• Please note: The Institute reserves the right to summarise and edit comments received during consultations, or not to publish them at all, where in the reasonable opinion of the Institute, the comments are voluminous, publication would be unlawful or publication would be otherwise inappropriate.

Comments received in the course of consultations carried out by the Institute are published in the interests of openness and transparency, and to promote understanding of how recommendations are developed. The comments are published as a record of the submissions that the Institute has received, and are not endorsed by the Institute, its officers or advisory committees.

Anticipated guidance publication date: May 2015

See here for more information on NICE’s guideline development process.