NICE is developing a public health guideline on Sunlight exposure: communicating the benefits and risks to the general public.

All registered stakeholders for the above public health guideline are invited to comment on the provisional recommendations via this website during a 7 week consultation with stakeholders.

Organisations not registered as stakeholders are not able to comment.

How to register as a stakeholder

Please note - the provisional recommendations presented here do not constitute NICE’s formal guideline on this topic. The recommendations are provisional and may change after consultation.

This consultation will take place between 23 December 2014 and 10 February 2015  

The draft guideline sets out the provisional recommendations that have been developed.

Please note - Comments forms with attachments such as research articles, letters or leaflets will not be accepted. If comments forms do have attachments they will be returned without being read. If the stakeholder resubmits the form without attachments, it must be by the consultation deadline.

Consultation Documents:

• Sunlight Exposure – benefits and risks: draft guideline
• Sunlight Exposure – benefits and risks: consultation on the draft guideline stakeholder comments form

Points to consider in the consultation:

Inconsistencies

• Potential inconsistencies or any disagreement with the Public Health Advisory Committee’s interpretation of the evidence and its applicability.

Responsibilities

• Whether the right organisations and individuals have been identified under ‘Who should take action’ for each recommendation

Inequalities

• Do you think this guideline could be improved to better promote equality of opportunity relating to age, disability, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation or socio-economic status? If so, please include details of:

  • Which particular parts of the guideline you think affect equality of opportunity.
  • Why and how you think equality of opportunity is affected.
• In addition are there any reasons why any of the recommendations in the guideline may result in an increase in inequality of opportunity relating to age, disability, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation or socio-economic status?

Gaps

• Points or areas that are not covered, but which appear to fall within the scope of the guideline.

Presentation

• Issues of presentation and style, including how the provisional recommendations have been grouped and ordered.

• The guideline aims to communicate complex health risk information to help people assess their own (or that of others for whom they have a duty of care) level of health benefits and risks from sun. 

  • Does the guideline set out the benefits and risks clearly enough?
  • How could the information on benefits and risks for different population groups be most usefully presented? 
  • Would it be useful to have a simple menu of statements for health practitioners to refer to?
  • Are you aware of existing summaries/formats that could usefully be used as a framework for presenting this information in the guideline

Implementation

• The practical value of the provisional recommendations.
• Do you agree with the areas identified as having a big impact on practice or challenging to implement in the draft implementation chapter?  Let us know if you would give priority to other areas.
• What would help users overcome these challenges?  (For example, you could share examples of good practice or you could provide details of educational materials or other relevant resources that you have found useful.) 

How to submit your comments:

Please provide all responses to the draft guideline using the Stakeholder Comments Form (ensuring all relevant fields are completed, including your organisation's name). Please forward the form by 10^thFebruary 2015 at the very latest to SunlightExposure@nice.org.uk.

The Institute is unable to accept:

• More than one response per stakeholder organisation
• Comments received after the consultation deadline
• Comments that are not complete on a stakeholder comments form
• Confidential information or other material that you would not wish to be made public
• Comments forms with attachments such as research articles, letters or leaflets. If comments forms do have attachments they will be returned without being read. If the stakeholder resubmits the form without attachments, it must be by the consultation deadline.

What will happen to your comments?

• All comments (with the exception of personal, individual comments and late comments) will be sent to the project team at the end of the consultation
• Comments from registered stakeholders will be formally responded to by the project team and posted on the NICE website after the final guideline is published.
• Comments on the draft implementation chapter will not receive a formal response as these will be treated as part of a wider information gathering exercise to inform the development of implementation support for the final guideline.
• No action will be taken upon receipt of personal, individual comments 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.

Supporting evidence:

Appendices part 1

   1. Evidence Review 1

   2. Evidence Review 2 – report

   3. Evidence Review 2 – appendices

   4. Evidence Review 3

Appendices part 2

   5. Economic modeling report

   6. Evidence Report 1

Appendices part 3

   7. Expert Paper 1 - Key Topics in Risk Communication

   8. Expert Paper 2 - The Independent Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation

Appendices part 4

   9. Expert Paper 3 - Ultraviolet radiation and the eye

Appendices part 5

   10. Expert Paper 4 - Achieving adequate sun protection with adequate vitamin D status

• 11.Expert Paper 5 - Sunlight and Vitamin D

   12. Expert Paper 6 - Northern Ireland Skin Cancer Prevention Strategy and Action Plan 2011–2021

Please be advised that the format of evaluation reports shared on the NICE website has recently changed, for ease of user navigation between individual documents contained in the report.

It is a requirement of the new (PDF portfolio) format that Adobe Reader is used to view the document. Please follow the link at the bottom of this page to download Adobe Reader if required.

If you have any feedback on the new format please contact the Coordinator for this guideline.