NICE begins phased restart of non-COVID-19 guidance

24 Jun 2020 04:35 PM

NICE has begun a phased restart of publishing non-COVID-19 guidance as the NHS and wider health and care system start to return to normal arrangements.

NICE’s revised publication targets for this financial year include 4 guideline topics with more to be added to the list in the coming weeks, 8 quality standards, up to 70 technology appraisals and highly specialised technologies guidance and up to 42 interventional procedures, diagnostics and medical technologies guidance.

Since mid-March NICE has focused on supporting the health and care system by developing 21 rapid COVID-19 related guidelines, and other therapeutically-critical guidance.

NICE has also supported efforts to accelerate patient access to potential treatments and diagnostics for COVID-19. 

NICE’s guidelines and quality standards

The first guidelines to publish will be:

• Joint replacement (primary): hip, knee and shoulder (NG157) - published on 4 June 2020
• Perioperative care in adults
• Rehabilitation in adults with complex psychosis and related severe mental health conditions
• Behaviour change: digital and mobile health interventions.

The first quality standards to publish will be:

• Specialist neonatal respiratory care for babies born pre-term
• Renal and ureteric stones
• Decision making and mental capacity

NICE’s health technology evaluation programmes

The first guidance to publish will be:

• Fremanezumab for chronic, episodic migraine - published on 3 June 2020
• Tests to help assess risk of acute kidney injury for people being considered for critical care- published on 17 June 2020
• Avatrombopag for treating thrombocytopenia in people with chronic liver disease needing a planned invasive procedure- published yesterday (24 June 2020)
• Rezum for treating lower urinary tract symptoms secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia- published yesterday (24 June 2020)
• Artificial iris insertion for acquired aniridia (expected publication date: 22 July 2020)
• Artificial iris insertion for congenital aniridia (expected publication date: 22 July 2020)

When deciding which pieces of guidance to publish first, the following was considered; the clinical priority of the topic, its stage of development and original planned publication date, as well as committee availability and staff capacity.

Other guidance will follow, and new expected publication dates will be added to the specific topic pages on the NICE website when they are confirmed.

NICE’s guidance centres and developers will communicate directly with committees and registered stakeholders to inform them of how specific guidance topics are likely to be affected.

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