NICE Guidance is developed by independent committees, including professionals and lay members, and consulted on by stakeholders.
The level of involvement varies between these groups:
- Members of stakeholder organisations (e.g. APCP) can be involved in all activities: scoping workshops, as members of committee developing guidance, submitting comments, etc.
- Individual members of the public (e.g. parent of a child with a health condition) can participate in committees as lay members if they have personal experience in the topic (condition, treatment, equipment etc.).Individual practitioners
- Individual practitioners may also be able to give evidence to the committee as expert witnesses on some topics or be invited to be specialist commentators regarding a new piece of equipment or device with which they have experience.
What is a NICE stakeholder?
A NICE stakeholder organisation is an organisation that has registered with NICE to say they are interested in getting involved in developing guidelines on particular topics.
NICE stakeholder organisations can include:
- Public organisations: national patient, service user, carer and community organisations that represent the interests of people whose health or care is covered by the guideline, and local Healthwatch organisations, e.g. SCOPE.
- Professional organisations: national organisations that represent the people working in health and social care who provide the services described in the guideline, e.g. APCP.
- Commercial enterprises and companies: manufacturers of medicines, devices, or other products relevant to the guideline, e.g. standing frames, asthma inhalers, etc.
- Providers and commissioners of health and social care services, Government organisations, and research organisations in the UK.
Information about registering an organisation as a NICE stakeholder can be found on the NICE website.
The APCP NICE Guidance Officer is responsible for registering APCP as a stakeholder organisation for any relevant NICE guidance in development. As a stakeholder organisation, APCP is expected to review the draft scope and draft guidelines and to submit comments.