Who can work for us
Our team comprises of systematic reviewers, health economists, information scientists, guideline development managers, research assistants and administrative support. We also recruit health professionals and patient/carer representatives for each clinical guideline whose job it is to agree the review questions, consider the evidence and make recommendations.
More information about the role of our technical team follows on. Refer to our guidelines section for more detail about guideline development group (GDG) members.
Systematic Reviewers:
The role of the systematic reviewer is to provide summarised tables of the evidence to inform other GDG members. The role involves:
• setting review questions
• assessing and selecting published abstracts
• critical and quality appraisal of evidence using a validated system
• distilling evidence into tables
• synthesising evidence into statements
• maintaining comprehensive audit trails.
The systematic reviewer is a core member of the GDG, alongside the rest of the NCC technical team. He or she is crucial to the dissemination, presentation and debate of the evidence within the GDG.
Health Economists:
The role of the health economist in clinical guideline development is to:
• advise on economic issues
• review economic evaluations
• prioritise questions for further economic analysis
• conduct economic evaluations
• liaise with the costing analyst at NICE to ensure consistency between the cost-effectiveness and cost-impact assessments.
The health economist should attend all GDG meetings. Although the health economist has skills in economic analysis, the expertise of all of the GDG members will be necessary to ensure that economic evidence is underpinned by the most plausible assumptions and the best available clinical evidence. Similarly, the health economist may be able to provide useful input into the interpretation of clinical data.
Information Scientists:
The information specialist identifies the relevant literature that is used to answer the review questions developed by the GDG and the technical team. The role involves:
• contributing to the setting of review questions
• designing and testing population and study design search filters
• contributing to discussions among the technical team and in GDG meetings as required
• identifying which databases should be searched
• drafting, refining and executing search strategies
• creating databases of the search results using reference management software
• maintaining audit trails, including keeping a log of search results, rationales and strategies
In addition, the information specialist advises on issues such as copyright and licences, metadata, archiving and record management.
Editors:
The role of the editor involves:
• managing the editing, copy-editing and proof-reading of a range of documents for the NCCMH including all versions of the guideline: the full guideline, the NICE guideline, the Quick Reference Guide and the Understanding NICE Guidance booklet for service users and carers
• ensuring clarity, accuracy and consistency of style and content across all of the guideline products
• undertaking some writing of the Understanding NICE Guidance and the service user and carer sections of the full guideline
In addition, to aid implementation the editor is involved in writing and editing articles about the guidelines and the role of the NCCMH.
Project Managers:
The guideline development manager oversees and facilitates the whole guideline process and is the first point of contact for any queries or requests from GDG members. This involves:
• setting realistic timescales and ensuring timely progress of development
• organising GDG and Topic Group meetings
• assisting research/development tasks and supporting GDG members where needed
• compiling the draft guidelines
• assisting editorial tasks
• setting up implementation activities
Research Assistants:
The research assistant works closely with a systematic reviewer in collating existing reviews and conducting new systematic reviews required for the development of guidelines. The role involves:
• contributing to the initial setting-up of systematic reviews
• contributing to the identification of relevant papers and the extraction and analysis of data
• contributing to the preparation of data for discussion and review by the GDG
• contributing to the preparation of data for publication and review
• maintaining careful records as appropriates
• attending meetings necessary for satisfactory completion of the duties of the post
• maintaining audit trails, including keeping a log of search results, rationales and strategies
