How Outcomes First Group utilise NICE Guidance

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is valued for providing clarity about best practice from a well-researched source. The guidance is used throughout Outcomes First Group to inform and develop governance strategies within the services and to ensure high standards of quality and practice.  It has empowered individuals in their practice and has been a valuable reference point for highlighting the clearly defined quality standards and guidelines with partner organisations.

“We use NICE because it is a reliable evidence base to support our decisions, policies and processes.  It provides clarity around best practice and is a reputable source of well-researched information understood and recognised by a range of partners” – Billy Smallwood, Head of Clinical Services

How has NICE Guidance been used at Outcomes First Group?

NICE guidance has been used by practitioners in their decision making and has reinforced their strategies by being a reputable and well-known source of evidence for our Head of Clinical Services and clinical team to reference. It is a place where they can refer partner organisations and their support staff to, to emphasise and support their approaches.

Where there has been controversy or uncertainty around new/novel approaches, NICE guidance is used by our teams to ascertain whether there is a sound evidence base and helps the Head of Clinical Services to challenge her colleagues and their methods where they are not aligned to evidence based approaches. NICE is seen as somewhere that reviews the body of evidence and provides reliable, validated inferences about what works and what doesn’t. It provides our clinical team with clarity of best practice from a well-established and respected source.

NICE has helped to empower the team by building their confidence and providing reassurance.  Practitioners occasionally have reservations about particular approaches due to the complexity that can be involved in their work. Interventions and approaches are not always straight forward when working with children and adults who have experienced trauma. NICE supports them in their practice by providing reviewed and endorsed standards of best practice, which either back up their methods or provide them with a range of information from which to make their decisions. NICE guidance doesn’t always teach them anything new, however it still adds real value by confirming the appropriateness of their approaches.

Not only has NICE been a supportive and informative tool for the clinical team, but it has also helped to form governance strategies and writing protocols. NICE guidance has helped to inform our internal policies and processes which has brought great value to Outcomes First Group as a provider within the private sector, working outside of the NHS.

What has been the added value or strength of using NICE guidance?

It adds value to Outcomes First Group within the private sector, working with people within the public sector, by highlighting, supporting and reinforcing methods of well-researched, evidence based best practice.

To find out more about the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), please see here: https://www.nice.org.uk