NICE process and methods

2 Treatment option summaries

2 Treatment option summaries

2.1 Aims

NICE treatment option summaries support the delivery of NICE's strategic objective to provide dynamic, living guideline recommendations that are useful, useable and used, while being rapidly updated by:

  • Collating NICE TA and guideline recommendations in fast moving, high priority clinical topic areas and providing an interim solution until digital living guidelines are a reality.

  • Presenting the recommended treatment options visually, in a way that is easy for people to understand.

  • Providing a structured visual tool which can be used by CHTE to support the TA process and to ensure that recommendations within the same clinical topic area, are coherent with one another.

  • Rapidly incorporating newly recommended technologies into existing treatment option summaries to support uptake and shared decision-making.

2.2 What are treatment option summaries?

NICE treatment option summaries differ from conventional NICE visual summaries because they present both TA recommendations and guideline recommendations in the same product or summarise TA options at different decision points.

Treatment option summaries vary depending on the relevant NICE content, user needs or commissioning arrangements. For example, the lung cancer product is a visualisation of treatment options in a patient journey of care by bringing together NICE recommendations in an integrated way, whereas the multiple sclerosis product summarises TA recommended treatment options in a high priority area of clinical care. These products can support user decision-making by:

  • showing the different options available at a single decision point in the topic area

  • showing which options may be the most appropriate for a specific population

  • providing additional clinical information to support clinicians when discussing treatment options with patients (for example, highlighting the factors that may help people to choose between technologies)

  • providing information to support shared decisions between patients and clinicians about treatment options when there are preference-sensitive decisions to be made.

2.3 Who are treatment option summaries for?

  • Healthcare professionals.

  • Integrated care systems.

  • Patients and their families and carers.

2.4 Key activities