About clinical guidelines
Clinical guidelines are recommendations by NICE on the appropriate treatment and care of people with specific diseases and conditions within the NHS. They are based on the best available evidence. While clinical guidelines help health professionals in their work, they do not replace their knowledge and skills
Aim of clinical guidelines
Good clinical guidelines aim to improve the quality of healthcare. They can change the process of healthcare and improve people's chances of getting as well as possible. Clinical guidelines can:
- provide recommendations for the treatment and care of people by health professionals
- be used to develop standards to assess the clinical practice of individual health professionals
- be used in the education and training of health professionals
- help patients to make informed decisions
- improve communication between patient and health professional
Versions of clinical guidelines
NICE produces four versions of its clinical guidelines:
- the full guideline contains all the recommendations, plus details of the methods used and the underpinning evidence
- the NICE guideline presents the recommendations from the full version in a format suited to implementation by health professionals and NHS bodies
- the NICE pathway is an online tool for health and social care professionals that brings together all related NICE guidance, quality standards and implementation tools on a topic in a set of interactive flowcharts
- understanding NICE guidance is written using suitable language for people without specialist medical knowledge.
Cancer service guidance
Cancer service guidance supports the implementation of The NHS Cancer Plan for England, and the NHS Plan for Wales Improving Health in Wales. The focus of the cancer service guidance is to guide the commissioning of services and is therefore different from clinical practice guidelines.
Health professionals should take the NICE cancer service guidance into account when planning, commissioning and organising services for cancer patients. This guidance can be used to identify gaps in local provision and to check the appropriateness of existing services.
Read more about
- Developing NICE clinical guidelines
- Clinical guidelines in development
- Published clinical guidelines
- Reviewing published clinical guidelines
- Clinical guidelines referred to NICE in June, July and December 2012 to develop the evidence base for Quality Standards topics
This page was last updated: 28 February 2013