Understanding RCEM Best Practice Guidelines

Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Best Practice Guidelines are produced by a variety of special interest groups or convened expert advisory groups which sit under the umbrella of the College’s Quality in Emergency Care Committee (QECC).1 They are produced to bridge the gap between systematically derived evidence-based recommendations and the need for emergency clinicians to provide quality care and advice to patients, or to respond to evolving trends. Unlike National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which are costly to produce, incorporate calls for evidence, formal evidence searches and economic evaluation, and take significant periods of time to produce, RCEM guidance is produced by volunteer members. The RCEM working groups and committees are often required to produce guidance at pace, making recommendations where only limited evidence exists or on the basis of expert opinion. These guidelines go through a peer-review process (being circulated both...
Source: Emergency Medicine Journal - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research