The RCOG’s Green-top guidelines have been approved by the NHS Evidence Accreditation Scheme. This means that the RCOG’s clinical guidelines have been recognised as a source of reliable information for healthcare professionals and the public. Validation is awarded for a period of three years from January 2010 and is also retrospectively applicable to the RCOG’s guidelines produced since 2007.
In granting the accreditation, NHS Evidence’s Advisory Committee noted that the RCOG’s guidelines production process is particularly strong in its scoping and objective-setting, in its stakeholder involvement and in the use of a systematic methodology to arrive at its conclusions.
RCOG Vice President Tahir Mahmood said, “We are delighted NHS Evidence has accredited the RCOG’s guidelines process.
“The College has been producing robust clinical guidelines and scientific reviews since the 1990s and these are used worldwide to deliver evidence-based clinical care for women. Indeed, our guideline programme has expanded and we are currently looking at subjects that have an international scope such as the management of malaria in pregnancy and the management of women with Female Genital Mutilation.
“We are pleased that our processes, including evidence-gathering, stakeholder consultation and peer-review have met with the panel’s approval. Whatever we do is in the public’s and the NHS’s interests as these set standards and improve quality.
“The next step, as always, would be for hospitals and doctors to implement recommendations made in these guidelines and for healthcare commissioners to monitor the level of adherence to these guidelines through the National Quality Accounts.”
24 February 2010
Notes
To view the report produced by NHS Evidence on the RCOG’s application for accreditation, please click here.
To speak to the RCOG about its Green-top guidelines, please contact Gerald Chan on 020 7772 6446 or email gchan@rcog.org.uk. To speak to NHS Evidence about its accreditation scheme, please contact Kristin O’Leary on 0161 219 3778 or email Kristin.oleary@nice.org.uk.