Commissioners of health services take NICE guidance seriously and may change services according to the guidance ... NICE guidance is therefore important as it affects our everyday practice as physiotherapists.
It is important that we make use of the opportunities to have our say so that we can submit evidence and highlight the role of physiotherapy within paediatrics.
You might think that you as an individual therapist you could have minimal influence, but physiotherapists can and do influence and change NICE guidance.
APCP and APCP members have been able to influence some the recent guidance published by NICE:
| Adults with cerebral palsy: with APCP representation at the Scoping Workshop, the scope of the guidance was expanded to include issues related to secondary neurological conditions such as cervical myelopathy |
| Weight Management: physiotherapy involvement in the Scoping Workshop resulted in changes to the content of the proposed guidance |
| Susie Turner represented paediatric physiotherapy on Cerebral palsy in under 25s guidance committee |
| Joanna Bond-Kendall represented paediatric physiotherapy on the Myalgic encephalomyelitis (or encephalopathy)/chronic fatigue syndrome: diagnosis and management guidance committee |
| Xanthe Hodgson sat on the guidance committee for Babies, children and young people’s experience of healthcare |
| The APCP stakeholder response for End of life care for infants, children and young people, ensured that neonates were included as a specific group with different needs. It also highlighted the lack of evidence in this area and led to a NICE research recommendation into ‘ the impact timely perinatal palliative care has on the experience of bereaved parents.’ NICE research recommendations will often attract research funding for future studies. |
| A physiotherapist was recruited to comment on the MOLLI suit for reducing spasticity in cerebral palsy and was able to give specific recommendations regarding its use. |
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