We are now consulting registered stakeholders on the draft scope of our guideline on Increasing the uptake of HIV testing among people at higher risk of exposure and would like to hear from you. The scope defines what the guideline will (and will not) cover.

Consultation dates: 13 January 2015 to 10 February 2015

How to comment

1. Register as a stakeholder

Your organisation needs to be registered as a stakeholder. You can still register. If you do not belong to an organisation that can register as a stakeholder, we recommend that you contact the registered stakeholder organisation that most closely represents your interests and pass your comments to them.

2. Read the consultation documents

Consultation documents:

• Draft scope
• Comments form

Background documents

• Developing NICE guidelines: how to get involved
• Equality impact assessment

Points to think about when commenting

Does the scope:

• Take account of issues relating to improving health and wellbeing, which are important for people affected by the guideline?
• Include interventions that are currently used, but may not be effective, acceptable or tolerable to people using services?
• Note any equality issues or aspects of care or services that the guideline should address (examples include information and support, perceived risks and benefits of and individual choice or preference about an activity, and cultural differences that may affect the use of an intervention or approach to care)?
• Promote equality of opportunity regardless of age, disability, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, religion and belief, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status?
• Unfairly exclude any groups (for example, by age or general health)?
• Use wording that is respectful of people using services, carers and people working in health or social care?
• Refer to government policies, guidance (for example, from the Department of Health) or other major projects related to this topic (such as promotional campaigns) that should be used when developing the guideline?

3. Make your comments and submit them

If your organisation and another registered stakeholder have similar views on the guideline, we encourage you to send a joint response.

Please submit comments to hivtesting@nice.org.uk no later than 5pm on 10 February 2015.

Checklist for submitting comments:

• Use the comments form and submit it as a Word document (not a PDF).
• Combine all comments from your organisation into one response. We cannot accept more than one response from each organisation.
• Underline and highlight any confidential information or other material that you do not wish to be made public.
• Do not include medical information about yourself or another person from which you or the person could be identified.
• Do not include attachments such as research articles, letters or leaflets (for copyright reasons). We return comments forms that have attachments without reading them. The stakeholder may resubmit the form without attachments, but it must be received by the deadline.

What happens next

• The developer will consider all the comments when revising the scope. They will respond to comments from registered stakeholders, and the comments and responses will be published alongside the final scope on the NICE website.
• If you submit comments directly (not through a registered stakeholder organisation), the developer will still consider your comments when revising the scope, but will not respond to them or publish them on the website.
• The developer cannot consider any comments that arrive after the deadline, or are not on the comments form.

Information on the progress of this guideline.

Please note: We reserve the right to summarise and edit comments received during consultations, or not to publish them at all, if we consider the comments are too long, or publication would be unlawful or otherwise inappropriate.

Comments received during our consultations 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 NICE has received, and are not endorsed by NICE, its officers or advisory committees.