What are NICE guidelines?
Evidence-based recommendations for the NHS, built to standardise care and inform commissioning while leaving room for clinical judgement.
Applies to clinicians using NICE guidance in England and Wales.
NICE guidelines are evidence-based recommendations developed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to guide health and social care professionals in England and Wales on the most effective and cost-effective ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases and manage conditions, aiming to standardise and improve the quality of care while promoting equitable access to treatments and technologies across the NHS; these guidelines are formulated through a rigorous and transparent process that involves systematic reviews of the best available clinical and economic evidence, often conducted by independent academic centres, followed by extensive consultation with national clinical experts, professional bodies, patient groups, and other stakeholders, culminating in consensus decisions by independent committees who weigh the benefits, harms, and value for money of interventions to produce practical recommendations that cover a wide spectrum of care from public health interventions and clinical management to surgical procedures and medicines optimisation, with the intention of supporting clinical decision-making at the individual patient level while also informing service planning and commissioning by Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) to ensure that NHS resources are used efficiently to achieve the best possible health outcomes.
Types of NICE guidance
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) develops several distinct types of guidance to support evidence-based decision-making across the UK health and care system, each serving a specific purpose for clinicians, commissioners, and patients.
How NICE guidelines are used by the NHS
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines are a cornerstone of clinical practice within the NHS, providing evidence-based recommendations intended to standardise and improve the quality of care across England and Wales. For clinicians, these guidelines serve as a primary, authoritative resource to inform decision-making at both individual patient and service levels, translating the latest robust research and expert consensus into practical, actionable advice.
How often NICE guidelines are updated
The frequency with which NICE guidelines are updated is not governed by a rigid, fixed schedule but is instead determined by a dynamic and evidence-driven surveillance process designed to ensure that guidelines remain current, relevant, and reflective of the best available evidence. This process, managed by NICE's specialist surveillance team, involves the continuous monitoring of new research, emerging technologies, significant safety alerts, changes in NHS service delivery, and feedback from stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, patients, and professional bodies.