Best Practice: Sharing best clinical practice

Author Caroline Rapu, PGDip, MBA, is project manager, RCN NICE Portfolio
 
As core users of NICE guidance it is vital that nurses help its development, inform its content in the interest of patients and share best clinical practice through implementation

Author Caroline Rapu, PGDip, MBA, is project manager, RCN NICE Portfolio
 
As core users of NICE guidance it is vital that nurses help its development, inform its content in the interest of patients and share best clinical practice through implementation.

RCN members provide professional input to ensure that the guidance includes the nursing perspective. RCN members work in two ways – as a collaborating centre that develops guidelines on behalf of NICE and as a stakeholder contributing to the development of NICE guidelines.

The RCN hosts the National Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Supportive Care, which is one of the seven centres commissioned by NICE to develop its clinical guidelines. We developed the following guidelines: pressure ulcer management; and managing violence behaviour in inpatient settings and emergency departments. We are currently working on osteoporosis, irritable bowel syndrome and peri-operative hypothermia guidelines.

As a stakeholder, the RCN contributes to the development of guidelines and reviews draft guidelines for implementation. 

Nurses are involved in a variety of ways, such as scoping a guideline, submitting evidence on the topic being reviewed and reviewing draft guidelines prior to their publication. They are also members of the guideline development groups and are involved in finalising clinical questions, interpreting evidence reviews, meta-analyses, consensus procedures, cost-effectiveness reviews, developing recommendations, and implementation.

We believe that a good guideline is one that is widely implemented. We support conferences and study days promoting NICE guidance and nominate members who work in the relevant fields to assist NICE in developing implementation support tools.

Recently our members contributed to the development of the following implementation support tools: clinical guidelines on the prevention of venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis) for patients undergoing surgery; and managing eczema in children.

We welcome nurses with expertise to participate in this work. For further information email caroline.rapu@rcn.org.uk.