NICE process and methods
2 Who is involved in producing NICE decision aids?
2 Who is involved in producing NICE decision aids?
2.1 Development team
The development team is made up of pharmacists and technical, project and administrative staff who are responsible for:
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coordinating work, agreeing timelines and liaising with external partners as needed
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scoping and writing decision aids in line with this process, the standards framework for shared-decision-making support tools, including patient decision aids and evolving best practice in shared decision making and risk communication. This includes selecting the evidence on which a decision aid is based and identifying and working with the project group
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quality assuring decision aids
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updating decision aids.
The development team works with other NICE teams to:
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identify, select and prioritise possible topics for decision aids
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liaise with guidance committee members
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identify and work with project group members
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support clear and effective presentation and publication of decision aids
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conduct literature searches if these are needed.
2.2 Project group
A project group is identified and established to guide development of each NICE decision aid. This includes topic experts and relevant members of NICE staff. Topic experts are people with professional expertise or lived experience relevant to the topic of the decision aid. They include patients or people who use services (or organisations that represent them), carers, and health or care professionals.
Topic experts are usually guidance committee members or are recruited via voluntary and community sector organisations and professional organisations. The role of the topic experts is to:
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inform the scope of the decision aid; in particular to identify the possible options and the possible harms, benefits and consequences of them that are important to most people facing the decision
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ensure the decision aid is fair, balanced and reflects the evidence, and is consistent with current NHS practice
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help ensure the decision aid is easy for people facing the decision (and their family and carers, as appropriate) to understand and use
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help ensure the decision aid is acceptable to and easy to use by professionals and practitioners supporting people facing the decision.
The project group is identified early in the production process to provide comments within an agreed timeframe.