• NICE Conduct Disorders in Children and Young People (10 September)
• NICE Evaluating Pathways (10 September)
• GMC Call for evidence on doctors’ roles and responsibilities in child protection (17 September)
• NICE Epilepsy (20 September)
• NICE Psychosis with substance misuse (20 September)
• Mannitol for cystic fibrosis (27 September)

Conduct Disorders in Children and Young People - recruitment of GCG Chair

NICE is recruiting for a Guideline Development Group (GDG) Chair for the clinical guideline Conduct Disorders in Children and Young People. The GDG Chair will have a leadership role in developing a nationally implemented guideline with the promotion of the best possible practice and health outcomes for children at its core.

Chairing a GDG is a demanding yet very rewarding role. It requires strong interpersonal and team-working skills, an ability to communicate complex issues to differing audiences and a commitment to evidence-based medicine.

NICE is seeking a senior clinician. The GDG Chair will work with the Director and other NCC-MH staff to help with the scoping and running of the guideline development, in which GDG meetings will take place in London every 4 to 6 weeks over a period of approximately 20 months. The development phase is scheduled to begin in April 2011.

Should you be interested in applying for this opportunity, please visit the NICE website to download the application forms. You may also contact kleggett@cru.rcpsych.ac.uk. The deadline for applications is Friday 10 September.

NICE Evaluation Pathway Programme process guide and methods guide

NICE is consulting on the proposed process and methods guides for its new Evaluation Pathway Programme for Medical Technologies and would like to receive comments on the documents from anyone who has an interest in or who is affected by the Programme. The guides have been developed with substantial input from a number of individuals and organisations in the NHS, the medical technologies industry, academia, patient/ carer organisations and the Department of Health, who have participated in workshops and working group meetings and who have commented on drafts of the documents. Development of the guides has also been informed by NICE’s experience of running other evaluation programmes. The relevant documents can be found on the NICE website. Should you have any comments, please send, on the appropriate feedback forms, to NICE at medtechconsultation@nice.org.uk by Friday 10th September 2010. We would be grateful if you could send a copy of any response to bacch@rcpch.ac.uk.

GMC call for evidence on doctors’ roles and responsibilities in child protection - deadline 9am, Friday 17 Sept

The GMC is developing new guidance for doctors to help them meet the standards of professional conduct and performance that the GMC expects of them when their work relates to protecting children and young people from abuse and neglect. The intention is to strengthen GMC guidance to both promote good practice and protect doctors from criticism. More information is available from the GMC website. Membership of the Working Group was at the invitation of the GMC and the Chair (LJ M Thorpe).  The Working Group consists of 14 members including 7 doctors of whom 5 are paediatricians. It is important that we work with the group constructively and openly. This is an opportunity for us to demonstrate why and how working in child protection is a challenge and to ensure that the guidance produced is workable and a true representation of how paediatricians work in this difficult and highly complex area of medicine.

This is not about rewriting the legal framework or the principles of the Children Act. It is about working through the practical difficulties that paediatricians have faced, reviewing whether there is any real or potential conflict or uncertainty in the multiple sources of guidance, and then where the guidance is unclear, creating clarity and illustrating that with case studies. The areas under review are:

• Consent and confidentiality
• Relationships with parents, carers and the wider family
• Doctors working in partnership (with colleagues and with other agencies)
• Doctors knowledge and experience

Please contribute and help the paediatricians on the Working Group, deliver a sensible and practical ‘guide for all doctors who work in child protection’. We need you to send us examples of issues or case studies where you have faced uncertainty or criticism, and if possible how you worked through the uncertainties and the solutions you found. If you wish to contribute to the joint BACCH/RCPCH response, please send your comments on this form to Kelly Robinson by 9am, Friday 17 September. You can also respond directly to GMC via its website. Please copy Kelly Robinson into your response as it will be most helpful for us to review all the responses, and hence strengthen the BACCH/RCPCH contribution. Closing date for submission to GMC is 24 September 2010.

NICE Psychosis with substance misuse - consultation on draft guideline

This draft consultation calls for comments on any aspects of the clinical guideline Assessment and management of psychosis with substance misuse that raise concern, and for NICE to consider and act upon the comments received. This is the only chance to comment on this guidance before it is published for implementation on a national scale. To submit comments to the BACCH response, please record any errors on this form to bacch@rcpch.ac.uk by Monday 20 September. The documents can be found by clicking the links below:

• Draft full guideline
• Draft NICE guideline
• Appendices

NICE Mannitol for cystic fibrosis - Technical appraisal and Clinical expert

Technical Appraisal: NICE has asked the College to prepare an organisation statement on the technology appraisal. Please review the final scope, respond to the questions on this form and return it to us on bacch@rcpch.ac.uk by Monday 27 September.

Clinical expert nomination NICE has also invited RCPCH to nominate a clinical expert, who, if selected by NICE, will be invited to:

Individuals interested in being nominated by the College as a clinical expert should complete this nomination form and return to clinical.standards@rcpch.ac.uk by 12 noon, Monday 6 September.