Clinical Guideline Development

March 2013

Following a commission from the UK national association’s Clinical Effectiveness Subcommittee, Tim Blackburn completed writing the Process Manual for the Development of Clinical Guidelines for the British Association of Oral Maxillo-Facial Surgeons in March 2013. In order to complete this process, it was necessary to work with the National Institute of Clinical Health and Excellence (NICE) with the aim of ensuring that any Clinical Guidelines developed for BAOMS on a given topic and using this Process Manual would be credibly evidence based. In order for any clinical guidelines to be subsequently accredited by NICE, the Process Manual must form part of the application submitted to the NICE Advisory Committee and the topic Clinical Guideline must have been verifiably written using that manual. Tim Blackburn is the Lead Author of the Process Manual which took 2.5 years to develop, working through 12 different drafts. The aim is for it to be a reliable conveyer belt manual for the hundreds of registered Facial Surgeons in the UK to contribute to collaborative development of BAOMS clinical guidelines to the benefit of patients and colleagues across all healthcare disciplines related to facial surgery care delivery.

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