Following on from our recent response to the second consultation on the draft depression in adults guideline, we've also responded to NICE’s consultation on updating its guideline development manual.

The document is the process roadmap for how a guideline is developed and was an excellent opportunity for us to once again feed in our concerns with what we see as a flawed methodological approach to developing mental health guidelines.

Our key arguments included:

  • endorsing NICE’s recommendation to include real world data in guideline development
  • contesting NICE’s failures to consider theoretical orientation as a potential bias for or against other modalities
  • highlighting the flaws in using Network Meta-Analysis for analysing evidence, describing it as a novel experimental technique
  • challenging the lack of transparency around how evidence is interpreted to make the treatment recommendations within guidelines

Read our full response (pdf)

Find out more about our work around NICE guidelines