Give vulnerable children best possible start in life, says NICE

The social and emotional wellbeing of vulnerable children under 5 should be at the heart of early intervention services so all children have a fair chance to succeed in later life, new NICE draft guidance recommends.
Draft recommendations issued for public consultation today (20 April) focus on the importance of better coordinated strategic and local early years services, which include home visiting, early education and childcare, to support all families and children during their early years.

NICE Citizens Council publishes final report on development of social care guidance

The Citizens Council, which advises the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, has published its final report on factors that it believes should be considered when NICE develops social care guidance.
At a two-day meeting in early 2013, the 30 members of the public who make up the Citizens Council discussed which aspects of benefit, cost, and need NICE should bear in mind when producing guidance on social care. NICE assumed responsibility for developing guidance and quality standards for social care from April 2013.
As this is a new area of work for NICE, the Council's advice is informing the development of processes and methods, and action is already being taken based on the Council's conclusions.

NICE plans to recommend a new treatment for children with bipolar disorder

NICE, the health and social care guidance body, has issued new draft guidance proposing to recommend aripiprazole (Abilify, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Europe), for treating moderate to severe manic episodes in adolescents aged 13 and older with bipolar I disorder¹.
Commenting on the draft guidance, Professor Carole Longson, Director, Centre for Health Technology Evaluation, said. “Bipolar disorder is a serious mental health condition which is characterised by episodes of mania and depression. During a manic episode, the young person usually experiences irritability, poor concentration, little need for sleep and poor temper control. They may also feel over-confident and be driven to take unnecessary risks.

NICE and social care

NICE has a new responsibility, from April 2013, to develop guidance and quality standards for social care in England. This provides an opportunity to apply an evidence-based system to decision-making in the social care sector, similar to that provided for the NHS. It will also allow us to produce guidance that promotes better integration between health, public health and social care services. Our guidance will be developed in close partnership with, rather than imposed upon, service users and carers, practitioners and organisations working in social care.

A one-size fits all approach to measure body mass does not work in our diverse population, says NICE

Professor Mike Kelly, Director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE explained: “The point at which the level of body fat becomes risky to health varies between ethnic groups. Healthcare workers should apply lower thresholds to people from black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups than to those of white European descent. Excess body fat contributes to more than half of cases of type 2 diabetes, one in five of heart disease and between 8% and 42% of certain cancers (breast, colon and endometrial)[1]. The number of people affected by these health conditions is far greater among black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups - despite rates of obesity among these groups being similar to the white population[2]”.
In the UK, people of black African and African-Caribbean origin are three times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than the white population[3]. Type 2 diabetes is also more common among Chinese people[4]. In addition, people from all of these groups are more at risk of stroke[5].

Standards of care for people who self-harm must be improved, says NICE

he National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a quality standard to improve the quality of care and support for children, young people, and adults who self-harm.
The term self-harm is used to refer to any act of self-injury or self-poisoning carried out by a person, irrespective of their motivation. This commonly involves self-injury by cutting or self-poisoning with medication. Hospitals in England deal with around 220,000 episodes of self-harm by 150,000 people each year [i].

Advice from NICE supports improved commissioning for people who self-harm

NICE´s support for commissioning for self-harm, published today, will help commissioners to drive up quality and ensure that the needs of people who self-harm are being addressed in the range of generic services they commonly use.