National guidance and resources
National guidance and resources
There are several key sources of national guidance and information that you should be familiar with so that you can access them when needed.
We have listed these below:
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance is formed of evidence-based recommendations developed by independent committees, including professionals and lay members, and consulted on by stakeholders. These guidelines should be your first-line resource for evidence-based information on the management of clinical conditions.
The British National Formulary (BNF) and British National Formulary for Children (BNFc) are now freely accessible in an electronic format via the NICE website. These online formularies are updated more frequently than the printed versions, so accessing them electronically means that you will have access to the most up-to-date versions of these resources.
NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) are designed to provide primary care practitioners with a readily accessible summary of the current evidence base and practical guidance on best practice. You may find them useful to update your clinical knowledge on specific topics and gain an understanding of the resources that are available. Two sections that may be particularly useful are the Background and Management sections of each summary
Electronic medicines compendium (EMC) contains up-to-date, easily accessible information about medicines licensed for use in the UK. Here you can access Summaries of Product Characteristics (known as SPCs or SmPCs) and Patient Information Leaflets (known as PILs, Package Leaflets or PLs).
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidance although specifically intended for use in Scotland rather than England, may provide you with useful background information on specific topics. This should, however, not be used in place of NICE guidance, when this is available.
UKMi and SPS
UK Medicines information (UKMi) produce Medicines Q&A fact sheets which feature high quality, evidence-based and quality-controlled answers to common or unusual enquiries made to medicines information (MI) services.
All UKMi clinical content can now be accessed through the Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS). There are local and regional MI centres that offer a specialist information service.
The SPS website hosts a list of MI contact details. Use the search function to look for the information you need.
