Glossary
The NICE glossary provides brief definitions and explanations of terms and jargon used on our site. The terms describe how we work and how our guidance is produced.
Our glossary excludes specific clinical and medical terms although we intend to include these in the longer term. If you cannot find the term you are looking for, please email us so that we can consider adding it to the glossary. New terms are added regularly.
The glossary is not used for indexing the site or for navigation - for information on this, please see the NICE taxonomy.
Some definitions and examples are based on those in the ‘HTAi consumer and patient glossary’, with thanks to Health Technology Assessment International.
- Understanding NICE guidance
A summary of a piece of NICE guidance in everyday language for patients, carers and the general public. We publish summaries of all our guidance, except public health guidance.
- Update for primary care
A monthly publication for primary care staff, which summarises the latest guidance relevant to primary care. May also contain other NICE news items.
- Utility
In health economics, a 'utility' is the measure of the preference or value that an individual or society places upon a particular health state. It is generally a number between zero (representing death) and one (perfect health). The most widely used measure of benefit in cost-utility analysis is the quality-adjusted life year, but other measures include disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and healthy year equivalents (HYEs).
This page was last updated: 15 April 2011