Consultants' catch up

These visits have gone well, raising awareness amongst organisations and providing valuable feedback to NICE on our guidance and implementation tools. We are now being invited back by an increasing number of organisations, usually to provide support and advice on particular issues or topics. If you would like your Implementation Consultant to visit, or simply have questions about NICE and the work that we do, please contact us.

Whilst visits to organisations are an important part of our role there is a lot of other work going on. As Steve Sparks (Implementation consultant for London and the South East) mentioned in April, NICE has been keen to support the Department of Health’s regional obesity conferences. The last of these was held in Manchester, where we ran a workshop and attracted a large audience from across the health, social care and public health spectrum reflecting the importance now attached to this major issue. Addressing a different audience, my colleague, Jenni Field, also addressed a group of public sector finance professionals at the CIPFA annual conference explaining how we assess the cost effectiveness of new technologies. We also provided a demonstration of our costing tools which are designed to help local organisations work out the costs (and savings!) associated with implementing individual pieces of NICE guidance. The costing tools are all free and downloadable.

Turning to patient safety, you may have heard that NICE has been asked to produce guidance in two areas as part of a pilot project. In December 2007 we will be publishing two patient safety solutions on Ventilator Associated Pneumonia and Medicines Reconciliation. I am currently working with colleagues from both NICE and the National Patient Safety Agency on the production of tools to help organisations implement and evaluate the tools. There will be further updates on this important initiative in future editions of Into Practice. Click here for more details.

I’d like to finish by saying a few words about our Shared Learning initiative. As many of you may know we launched the Shared Learning Database at the NICE Conference last December. Our aim was to encourage people to submit examples of NICE implementation, or evaluation, that they felt might be of help to others. The Database has been growing steadily, and the number of downloads has been far beyond our predictions. To recognise the efforts that contributors have made we have now established the NICE Shared Learning Award. It will be presented at this year’s NICE Conference and the winner will receive a prize of £1,000 and free tickets to the conference. All submissions are accepted onto the website until 30 September and are automatically entered for the Award, so keep them coming! Click here for more information.

Remember, if you have any queries about NICE, or feel that we can help, please contact the Implementation Consultant for your area. Chris Connell Implementation consultant, West chris.connell@nice.org.uk