WIREDGOV

NICE has launched a new section of its website, designed to help staff in general practice get the most out of evidence and guidance provided by NICE.

Specifically created to support the use of evidence-based medicine and public health practice, this online resource offers solutions to enable the uptake of NICE and other national guidance in primary care, and contains a section on how NICE can help GP consortia.

Written with help from GPs, practice managers and practice nurses, it will prove a valuable tool to help to deliver high quality primary care and to improve patient outcomes.

Users can quickly access relevant guidance and information, advice to ensure the practice team is up-to-date, and to further their continuing professional development.

It also includes a range of useful information for general practitioners, such as a quick at-a-glance list of the top 10 NICE guidelines for general practice and summaries of the key points for general practice as NICE publishes new guidance each month.

These pages bring together all the resources that are available from NICE to support the emerging GP commissioning consortia, including links to the NICE quality standards, access to the best evidence to support commissioning, through NHS Evidence, and a range of practical tools and support.

The website has four key sections: NICE for my patients, Using NICE guidance in my practice, My NICE resources, and NICE for GP consortia. Each section is easy to access and read, providing high quality targeted information.

Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) said: “This new section of the NICE website could become an invaluable new resource for those working in general practice.

“It can be a real challenge to keep up-to-date with NICE guidance, but this new resource will help GPs and their staff develop a systematic approach to identifying and using NICE guidance."

GP Dr Greg Rogers, who helped develop the new online resource, said: “This website offers a really helpful resource, with lots of good content and is very user friendly.

“General Practice seems to be getting ever busier and I frequently need to access information as quickly as possible. This new section of the website offers extensive authoritative advice whilst also remaining easy to navigate.

“I hope it will become a well used resource for health professionals in primary care and hopefully it will evolve with time to be the one stop shop we all use for medical guidelines and also for keeping up to date with continuing professional development and the latest clinical evidence.”

Val Moore, NICE Implementation Programme Director, said: “NICE guidance is world-renowned for improving patient outcomes and setting the standard in effective and high quality health services. This new online resource will allow GPs and their colleagues to get the most out of our guidance and evidence resources, and overcome challenges for implementation.

It also includes a range of tools and information that will be of interest to GP consortia. This is particularly relevant to the Government's proposed changes to commissioning, and we will continue to adapt and update these resources as policy develops and in line with feedback, she added.