The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) is responsible for providing guidance to the National Health Service in England and Wales on the clinical- and cost-effectiveness of medicines and medical technologies. NICE requested WHO to carry out an external review of their Clinical Guidelines programme as part of a broader effort to further develop and strengthen the programme.

The WHO team of experts based their report on the review of a number of guidelines and extensive discussions with NICE staff, members of the national collaborating centres, the guideline development groups and other stakeholders during the course of two visits during the spring of 2006.

The report contains a series of recommendations on how NICE could further develop the guideline development process.

As NICE is internationally a leading institution in guideline development, the recommendations and observations contained in this report will be useful to other countries that are involved in similar efforts.