HI
Just to clarify, and I know you know this
Kev, the ONLY binding bit of NICE technology appraisals in the UK is for the financial
resources to be made available within 3 months of the appraisal in line with
the technology appraisal’s recommendations. And sometimes there’s
dispensation for a longer time for even that if development of the resource –
e.g. more memory clinics for the assessment of people with ?Alzheimers.
NICE guidelines are simply guidelines.
I’d love to see the reference for the
director of NICE threatened that legal action would be taken against those who
did not use approved technologies.
The only quote I can remember was Mike Rawlins
(the Chair of NICE) musing on where a clinician would stand legally if he/she
deviated in his/her clinical practice from the evidence-based guideline even if
he/she could produce a body of expert opinion to support the non-evidence-based
practice. That seems a reasonable question.
Bw
Neal
National Prescribing Centre
Liverpool
From:
Evidence based health (EBH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of k.hopayian
Sent: 09 September 2009 07:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Guidelines again
Definitions of guidelines usually contain a phrase that they do not
replace practitioners' judgement, for example, the NICE definition "They are based on the best available evidence.
Guidelines help healthcare professionals in their work, but they do not replace
their knowledge and skills"
Sounds good but I have always
wondered how this fits in with NICE guidance on specific treatments
(technology appraisals) which ARE binding on health care organisations.
In the past, the director of NICE threatened that legal action would be taken
against those who did not use approved technologies.
Does anyone on this list see a difference between guidelines that tell
you in which conditions a treatment should be used and guidelines that tell you
which treatments to use in certain conditions?
Kev Hopayian
On 9 Sep 2009, at 04:41, Alejandro Piscoya wrote:
Guidelines are quite interesting tools but they need to be used
thoughtfully. This is why they just guide
and are flexible, there is always room for individual cases where
physicians need to think and take decissions taking into account their
patientīs opinion. As EBM, guidelines are not cookbook recipes, this
example shows that bluntly.
The issue here is, assuming the news is not too biased, why this
guideline is followed so rigidly and what to do to avoid this...
Alejandro
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Ted
Harding<[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
I know it's a Press story, but ...