NICE and Cochrane to collaborate on living recommendations
pharmafile | September 1, 2021 | News story | Medical Communications, Research and Development |
NICE has announced a collaboration with Cochrane, in which Cochrane will help deliver ‘living’ recommendations across the NICE guideline portfolio.
Cochrane is a not-for-profit organisation that collects evidence for healthcare decision making. Currently there are over 7,500 Cochrane Systematic Reviews published in the Cochrane Library.
The signed collaboration agreement will allow NICE to make efficient and effective updates to the recommendations in its guidelines.
The announcement on Wednesday follows the recent publication of NICE’s new 5-year strategy, in which one of the key aims was to provide dynamic living guideline recommendations.
Cochrane has a long-established relationship with the NHS and receives a large proportion of its funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and their systematic reviews of health evidence are already used to inform NICE guidelines.
Dr Karla Soares-Weiser, Editor in Chief of the Cochrane Library, said: “This agreement has collaborative benefits for all involved. NICE will get the findings of Cochrane Reviews to use in their deliberations, Cochrane groups will be able to respond by producing high priority reviews, and for Cochrane review authors, it guarantees impact.
“Ultimately, however, the beneficiaries will be people who need evidence to make decisions about their health or that of someone else, and this supports that happening in a timely way.”
During NICE’s 2021 update of its guideline on ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage, Cochrane’s network meta-analysis of progestogens for preventing miscarriage was presented to the independent guideline committee. This allowed the committee to make recommendations more efficiently due to early access to all the latest evidence.
Professor Gillian Leng, Chief Executive at NICE, said: “I am delighted to have signed a collaborative agreement with Cochrane. Cochrane has a well-established reputation for producing high quality systematic reviews which take into account the very latest evidence. This agreement will help us to increase efficiency across our guideline portfolio and will help to deliver tangible benefits for people using the health service as well as clinicians who will get earlier access to NICE’s recommendations.
“While the last 15 months has been incredibly difficult for all of us working in the health service, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that we must continue to build on the collaborative working relationships we have established. This announcement demonstrates NICE’s commitment to finding more flexible and effective ways of working which will help to deliver better health outcomes for us all.”
Kat Jenkins
