NICE quality standards: process guide

  • NICE process and methods
  • PMG43
  • Published: 
  • Last updated: 
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Update information

December 2025: We updated the process guide to incorporate proportionate approaches to development introduced in July 2024 to enable flexibility and deliver useful and usable outputs:

  • Using externally developed evidence sources to underpin NICE quality standards if NICE guidance is not available.

  • Using guideline committees or development groups to develop NICE quality standards.

  • Incorporating externally developed quality standards into the NICE quality standards library.

  • We amended the required consultation length for updates to the NICE quality standards process guide to 4 weeks.

July 2024: We added an appendix on the interim process statement for a more proportionate approach to quality standard development, which describes the interim process changes that NICE will use to support proportionate approaches to the development and maintenance of NICE quality standards

November 2020: We updated the process guide throughout to reflect:

  • NHS England is now NHS England and Improvement

  • Department of Health is now the Department of Health and Social Care

  • scheduled update of the QSAC terms of reference and standing orders

  • changes to NICE internal teams.

May 2016: We updated throughout to align with:

  • new NICE team structures

  • removal of endorsing and supporting organisation logos from quality standard webpages

  • language change from 'revisions' to 'minor updates'

  • NICE's commitment to Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

April 2014: We updated this guide to include further information on the process for reviewing and updating published quality standards. We changed the term 'endorsing organisations' to 'supporting organisations' throughout and included details of the process for producing developmental quality statements.

August 2013: We updated the process guide throughout to reflect that:

  • NICE's name changed to the 'National Institute for Health and Care Excellence'.

  • NHS Commissioning Board is now NHS England.

  • Commissioning Outcomes Framework (COF) is now the Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set (CCG OIS).

  • Stakeholder comments will not be formally considered if they are submitted by unregistered stakeholders or after the relevant deadline.

ISBN: 978-1-4731-7485-6