Quality standards in development

NICE quality standards are currently being developed for the following topics:

For information on the NICE quality standards work schedule for 2013/14 please refer to the quality standards forward planner.

Development

The Department of Health and other key partners have worked with NICE to develop a core library of topics for quality standard development in health-related topics. Future topics will be referred to NICE by NHS England for health-related areas, and by the Department of Health and Department for Education for non-health areas such as social care. The NICE Quality Standards Team develop quality standards in collaboration with Topic Expert Groups (TEGs) and Quality Standards Advisory Committees (QSACs).

For more information on the development of NICE quality standards in collaboration with TEGs please see Developing NICE quality standards: interim process guide and in collaboration with QSACs please see Quality standards process guide.

Engagement with stakeholders

We are keen to ensure that the development of NICE quality standards is open and transparent and that stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute. We therefore welcome comments at various points during the development process.

Topic overview

The NICE quality standards team develops a topic overview for each quality standard, based on the referral. The overview describes core elements of the standard, such as the population and condition or services to be covered, and lists the key source guidance that will be used to underpin the quality statements. At publication of the topic overview, NICE requests written submissions from QSAC specialist committee members and registered stakeholders asking them to:

• identify key areas for quality improvement
• highlight any national or routine indicators and performance measures not listed in the overview
• provide examples of published information on current practice (such as, reports of variation in care or service provision, evaluations of compliance with source guidance, or patient, carer or service user experience) to support the identified areas for quality improvement
• express interest in being an endorsing organisation. .

Draft quality standard

We also welcome comments on the draft quality standards. We are keen to ensure the quality statements within the quality standard will drive and measure priority quality improvements within a particular area of care, are important to the service and patients, service users and carers and are feasible to implement. NICE welcomes general feedback and comments on individual quality statements. Stakeholders may also be invited to respond to specific questions such as which quality statements are most important and why, whether there are important areas of care or service provision that are not included and if the proposed measures are appropriate. General feedback and comments on individual quality statements are accepted. For more information on individual consultations, please refer to the individual topic page. To find out how to submit your comments, please register as a stakeholder.

Endorsing NICE Quality Standards

If you would like your organisation to endorse a particular quality standard please email QualityStandards@nice.org.uk to express an interest. NICE is proud to jointly badge quality standards to help to achieve maximum dissemination among relevant audiences.

Those who endorse quality standards must be:

• National patient, carer, service user, voluntary, charity and non-governmental organisations that are run by, or directly reflect the perspectives of patients, service users, carers or client groups, and represent the interests of people whose care is covered by the quality standard in England.
• National organisations that represent the health or social care professionals who provide the services described in the quality standard in England.
• Statutory organisations (an organisation set up by government for a specific purpose) including Ofsted, Care Quality Commission (CQC), and Local Government Improvement and Development.