As you may be aware the planned date for review of the above guidance is October 2008.

This is the date at which the Institute decides whether sufficient new evidence has emerged for the Appraisal Committee to be asked to undertake a full review appraisal.

Having re-run the search strategy from the original assessment report the Institute has not found any relevant additions to the evidence base that would have a material effect on the guidance. Consequently we propose that the original guidance become static and will not be updated.

Topics on the static list may be transferred back to the active list for further appraisal if new evidence becomes available that is likely to have a material effect on the last guidance issued.

In order to be completely confident that this is appropriate, we are asking all relevant consultees and commentators, to inform us of any evidence which would suggest that a review would be beneficial.  Please see appendix A for a full list of the organisations we have contacted. Please inform us as soon as possible if we have missed any important organisations from the lists contained within the matrix or included any inappropriately. This will enable the Institute to involve/remove these organisations much earlier in the appraisal process.

As NICE is committed to promoting equality and eliminating unlawful discrimination we are also keen to know which organisations we should include in this consultation that have a particular focus on relevant equality issues.

Please note all comments received will be published on the Institute’s website when a decision has been taken.

• A full list of organisations we have contacted.

24 April 2009