Introduction

 

BrisDoc regularly receives new or updated NICE guidelines and safety alerts from the Central Alerting System (CAS).

Nice guidance

The role of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is to improve outcomes for people using the NHS and other public health and social care services. This is done by:

• Producing evidence-based guidance and advice for health, public health and social care practitioners.
• Developing quality standards and performance metrics for those providing and commissioning health, public health and social care services.
• Providing a range of information services for commissioners, practitioners and managers across the spectrum of health and social care.

NICE guidance supports healthcare professionals and organisations to make sure that the care they provide is of the best possible quality and offers the best value for money from the public purse. Working in accordance with NICE guidelines supports BrisDoc achieve its core values for providing high quality patient and resource care.

NICE provides independent, authoritative and evidence-based guidance on the most effective ways to prevent, diagnose and treat disease and ill-health, reduce inequalities and variation.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

Central Alerting Systems

The CAS is a web-based system for issuing patient safety alerts and other safety guidance to the NHS and other health and social care providers. The system was established in September 2008 and incorporates the Public Health Link (PHL) and Safety Alert Broadcast System (SABs).

Safety alerts, emergency alerts, drug alerts and medical advice alerts will be sent through the CAS system on behalf of Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the National Patient Safety Agency (part of NHS England), Public Health England and the Department of Health.

Objective

 

This policy sets out to ensure that BrisDoc has a systematic, auditable and effective approach to the distribution of NICE Guidance and CAS safety alerts across the entire organisation. Also to ensure that new and updated guidance, clinical evidence, pathways, clinical knowledge summaries and quality standards etc. are received, distributed and implemented across BrisDoc services

 

Clinical Guidelines

BrisDoc recognises that good clinical guidelines aim to improve the quality of healthcare, change the process of healthcare and improve people’s chances of getting as well as possible. Through the adoption of clinical guidelines BrisDoc will:

• implement recommendations for the treatment and care of people by health professionals
• apply standards to assess the clinical practice of individual health professionals
• educate and train health professionals
• help patients to make informed decisions, and
• improve communication between patient and health professional.

Guidance by date

Quality Standards

BrisDoc recognises that implementing quality standards will drive quality improvements in care and treatments provided to patients. Through the adoption of quality standards BrisDoc will:

• deliver evidence based care and treatment in accordance with best practice in the knowledge that it is clinically and cost effective.

NICE quality standards

Pathways

BrisDoc recognises the benefits of implementing end to end pathways of care and will be a proactive partner within the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire health community in the adoption and implementation of pathways to ensure patients receive seamless, high quality care.

NICE Shared decision making

Procedure

• The Governance Team will subscribe to and receive the regular NICE and CAS electronic communications that notify the issue of new guidance or alerts.
  • Practices will receive new guidance direct through GP TeamNet.
• The Governance Team will record and review all communications for relevance to BrisDoc’s services.
  • Each item will be logged on spreadsheet and the action taken/decision made recorded
• Relevant items will be downloaded and saved onto the shared drive.
  • It will then be emailed to the relevant manager for cascading to co-owners and the development of any implementation plans, review of guidance and pathways.
• Relevant guidance or alerts will be included on the BrisDoc’s clinical decision support system, the clinical toolkit by the Clinical Guardian Team and shared via clinicians’ newsletters by the Lead GPs.
• Any impact of implementing new guidance will be reviewed by the Quality Board.
• All guidance and alerts will be recorded on the Alerts Management log with rationale for sharing or not sharing will be documented (alerts and new guidance not relevant to any of the services may not be shared)
• The alerts log will be presented at Quality Board by the Governance Manger each month to provide assurance and oversight of new guidance dissemination.

 

Alerts and new guidance will be disseminated as follows:

 

 

 

 

Categories of Alert

• Immediate action: use in cases where there is a risk of death or serious injury and where immediate action is required
• Action: Used where the recipient is expected to take action on advice, repeat warning on long standing problems or support follow-up manufacturers modifications
• Update: update on previously reported incidents and where follow-up information is judged to be beneficial
• Information request: Used to alert users about specific issues that may become a problem and where feedback is requested. They may contain additional questions where no formal response is required e.g. drug alerts

Action deadlines

• Action Underway: at the time of acknowledgment BrisDoc will assess relevance and respond to the set deadlines
• Action Completed: The date by which BrisDoc is required to have completed the necessary action.

 

 

TRAINING

Managers are responsible for ensuring that appropriate staff (including new staff) area aware of their responsibilities in relation to the management of CAS alerts.

 

MONITORING, AUDIT and REVIEW

BrisDoc will ensure that all identified areas are monitored for their responses to new NICE guidance or CAS alerts within the required timeframes. Where responses are not dealt with within the required time the Governance Team will discuss the issue with the appropriate manager. A report will be generated for the relevant governance or quality Board.

BrisDoc will aim to carry out an annual audit of the process to ensure compliance with identified standards. The audit will examine specific alerts and include:

1. Identification of required actions;
2. Distribution of notices; and
3. Formal documented feedback procedures.

 

Change Register

 

Date	Version	Author	Change Details
02.06.15	1.0	CL Nicholls	Inclusion of CQC Standards, BrisDoc Values, general formatting.
19.09.16	1.2	CL Nicholls	Change BMC to Primary Care Services, inclusion of updated pathway and values slide
31.10.18	1.3	CL Nicholls	Update flowchart to reflect use of GPTeamNet in Practice Services and update language to reflect new governance structure and services
07.01.22	1.4	CL Nicholls	Update in relation to NICE website content, change language to co-owners.
08/01/2024	2.0	SP	Values removed (old format) Weblinks reviewed and updated Dissemination flowchart updated Updated process Bullet added: The alerts log will be presented at Quality Board by the Governance Manger each month to provide assurance and oversight of new guidance dissemination.
01/02/2024	2.0	SP	Central Alerting Policy merged into NICE Guidelines Policy
01/02/2024	2.0	SP	Renamed: Alerts and NICE Guidance, dissemination Policy.
04/03/2024	1.0	JB	New version of the merged policies uploaded to RADAR.