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Patient and Public Involvement in the Development of Healthcare Guidance: An Overview of Current Methods and Future Challenges

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Abstract

Clinical guidelines and health technology assessments are valuable instruments to improve the quality of healthcare delivery and aim to integrate the best available evidence with real-world, expert context. The role of patient and public involvement in their development has grown in recent decades, and this article considers the international literature exploring aspects of this participation, including the integration of experiential and scientific knowledge, recruitment strategies, models of involvement, stages of involvement, and methods of evaluation. These developments have been underpinned by the parallel rise of public involvement and evidence-based medicine as important concepts in health policy. Improving the recruitment of guideline group chairs, widening evidence reviews to include patient preference studies, adapting guidance presentation to highlight patient preference points and providing clearer instructions on how patient organisations can submit their intelligence are emerging proposals that may further enhance patient and public involvement in their processes.

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Acknowledgements

AR, VT and GL conceived and designed the article. AR and TS completed database and manual searches to identify the literature. AR and VT developed the outline and headings of the paper. AR wrote the first draft and VT, TS and GL critically revised it. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

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  1. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), 1st Floor, 10 Spring Gardens, London, SW1A 2BU, UK

    Ahmed Rashid, Victoria Thomas, Toni Shaw & Gillian Leng

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  1. Ahmed Rashid
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Correspondence to Ahmed Rashid.

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VT, TS and GL are employed by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), who produce guidelines and quality standards. AR is a clinician in the UK National Health Service who completed a fellowship at NICE in 2015.

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Rashid, A., Thomas, V., Shaw, T. et al. Patient and Public Involvement in the Development of Healthcare Guidance: An Overview of Current Methods and Future Challenges. Patient 10, 277–282 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-016-0206-8

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