Laura Craig - Programme Support Officer. nss.speg@nhs.scot

Content has been checked for accessibility in line with the relevant RDS standard operating procedure.

A guideline is drafted, generally by a member of the SPEG Clinical Guidelines subgroup and that could be done in conjunction with clinical experts out with the group.  The guideline is shared initially amongst the subgroup for review until sign off.  The guideline is then shared with the Steering Group for review and sign off.

The Clinical Guidelines subgroup act as the governance group who sign off on the content and digital presentation of each guideline via RDS.

Any member of the clinical community can request a change be made out with the normal review date, if this is deemed to be clinically necessary e.g. medication doses, timings of doses.  If the change is substantial, it will need to be signed off by the governance group (Clinical Guidelines subgroup) followed by the SPEG Steering Group.  All changes will be recorded in a change log.

As is standard practice for all SPEG Clinical Guidelines, a three-year review date is applied, which is considered an appropriate amount of time to review any updates to clinical practice.  However, there is the option to make exceptional changes at any point in time, as outlined above.  

Automated alerts will be sent to nss.speg@nhs.scot and whomever picks up the email will contact the relevant group/author to review as required.  The review process will follow the same line of procedures as the introduction of a new guideline, i.e. it will go to the governance group (Clinical Guidelines subgroup) and Steering Group for sign-off.

It was reviewed by members of the Clinical Guidelines subgroup and Steering Group.

Copyright checked and confirmed. 

All published guidelines are created based on a combination of published national guidelines (e.g. SIGN/NICE), expert opinion, and an appraisal of recently published evidence by the guidelines subgroup. 

Clinical Guidelines and Steering Group signed off on 20 February 2024. 

Feedback will be completed by users and the form will be sent automatically to the RDS generic email address. This would then be forwarded onto nss.speg@nhs.scot Any feedback would then be taken to the Clinical Guidelines subgroup for discussion and appropriate action taken, if necessary. If a change is requested to a guideline, this will follow the usual governance process. The author(s) will also be included in this process. 

The toolkit has been risk assessed, and mitigations put in place where required.

User feedback on app usability and functionality is sought via regular network meetings and questionnaires. Feedback has been positive.