NICE process and methods

3 Who is involved in producing good practice guidance?

3 Who is involved in producing good practice guidance?

3.1 The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre

The Medicines and Prescribing Centre is part of NICE's Centre for Clinical Practice (CCP). The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre consists of a programme director, associate directors and clinical, technical, project and administrative staff. For good practice guidance, members of the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre are responsible for:

  • developing and reviewing processes and methods to develop good practice guidance

  • identifying potential topics in accordance with topic selection and prioritisation process (see section 4)

  • preparing good practice guidance for publication, including identifying, selecting and critically appraising the evidence

  • identifying and liaising with stakeholders

  • providing quality assurance of the content of good practice guidance

  • ensuring agreed timelines and quality assurance standards are followed

  • reviewing and updating content of published good practice guidance where required.

For each good practice guidance the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre Programme Director and the Associate Director Medicines Advice will identify a project team which will be responsible for working with the Guidance Development Group (see section 3.4) to deliver the output.

3.2 Other NICE teams

The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre works closely with other NICE teams. The teams involved will depend on the good practice guidance in production. NICE teams can include:

Evidence Resources, NICE Implementation team, Clinical Guidelines and Technology Appraisals, Editorial team, Patient and Public involvement, External Communications and Information Services team.

Further detail of the role and functions of the NICE teams in relation to these outputs will be included within the methods manual for the good practice guidance.

3.3 Government departments and other public bodies

The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre liaises with relevant government departments and public bodies such as the Department of Health, Home Office and the NHS Commissioning Board as part of topic identification and defining the scope of good practice guidance. As key stakeholders, these agencies can also comment on the content of an output during the consultation phase of the production process.

3.4 Guidance development group

A guidance development group (GDG) of usually 15 to 20 people will be established for each good practice guidance. Recruitment for the positions of chair and members for each GDG will follow NICE recruitment processes for committees and groups. The relevant NICE policy can be found here.

The chair and members of each GDG are drawn from the NHS, healthcare professionals, key stakeholders, patients and carers, and academia. Members do not represent their organisations but are selected for their expertise, experience of working with multidisciplinary and lay colleagues and understanding of evidence-based healthcare and the systems and processes associated with healthcare decision-making.

All members of the GDG have equal status, which reflects the relevance and importance of their different expertise and experience. The GDG is the primary source of expertise to determine the content of the good practice guidance as defined within the scope of the project.

The GDG will consider the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre project team's initial review of the existing evidence, confirming (or challenging) the appropriateness for inclusion with the document. The GDG will also identify potential additional evidence sources, and where required call for expert oral and written testimony. The GDG will also determine the validity and application of such evidence with the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre project team.

3.5 Stakeholders

Identifying and engaging with stakeholders is an important stage of the development process for good practice guidance. Both individuals and organisations may register an interest in becoming a member of a guidance development group, as well as stating an interest in reviewing draft documents at a pre-defined stage of the process.

A list of stakeholders will be compiled in the early stages of the project. Stakeholders will be notified of details of the process for registration. A dedicated email inbox will be provided for those choosing to register. The inbox will be managed regularly and registrations logged.

The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre will communicate the expected dates of consultation periods, indicating methods of access and feedback. Communications will be through newsletters, bulletins and email alerts. Where appropriate, representative bodies/organisations as potential external stakeholders will be contacted directly.

The NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre project team will log the receipt of all stakeholder comments and record a brief summary and actions taken. Feedback that may delay the publication of the document will be escalated to the NICE Medicines and Prescribing Centre Programme Director.

The process for stakeholder registration will be reviewed and documented in the final process statement.

3.6 Conflicts of interest

NICE staff and members of the GDG will be required to comply with the NICE code of conduct on conflicts of interest. For more information about how NICE deals with conflicts of interest, please see 'A code of practice for declaring and dealing with conflicts of interest'.