Concise guidelines provide short guidance on the best ways to treat and manage a range of conditions and illnesses. The guidelines are short and accessible so that physicians can respond quickly to these conditions, which may be fairly common but outside their own specialist area. They are published in Clinical Medicine and are free to all to download.
What we are doing
The Concise Guideline Series are evidence-based guidelines for clinical management. These guidelines provide clear and concise recommendations for best practice, and practical tools with which to implement them. Generally, Concise Guidelines are abstracted from a longer source guideline, either published or under development, and summarise the guidance relevant to non-specialist physicians. They are often developed by specialists to provide advice to non-specialists covering topics such as the recognition or diagnosis of a condition, or the criteria for referral to a specialist or management of common problems.
Concise Guidelines are:
- for generalist physicians and trainees (eg those likely to be undertaking acute take or caring for "general medical" patients outside their main specialty)
- designed to address common problems
- designed to fill a gap in the current provision of guidelines
- developed to a specific standard in a robust, repeatable and standardised manner.
Concise Guidelines are not:
- intended to be comprehensive
- intended to replace NICE or other comprehensive guidance
- aimed at specialists
- focused on uncommon or highly specialised clinical topics.
Developing a Concise Guideline
Contact the advisor CQID@rcplondon.ac.uk in the first instance, who can advise on what will and won’t make a good Concise Guideline. It saves a lot of time and effort to make contact at an early stage. Information on methodologies for the source guideline can be found on The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) website.
What we have produced
Concise guideline follows an extensive review of the evidence of common work activities to see whether they might adversely affect pregnancy outcomes.
Concise summary of the British Occupational Health Research Foundation guideline on reducing the severity of individual cases of occupational asthma.
This concise guideline has been developed to aid doctors in understanding when and how to issue a fit note to the greatest benefit for their patients.
Concise guidance providing physicians who work in primary and secondary medical care with a standardised approach to managing contact dermatitis.
Alcohol dependence is common among patients attending acute hospitals but doctors in these settings are often inexperienced at assessing dependence.
This guideline concerns the diagnosis and management of patients with CRPS and provides recommendations for diagnosis, treatment and referral.
This guideline is intended for all healthcare professionals who may be involved in emergency oxygen use in hospital.
This guideline covers investigation and diagnosis, clinical management and management of the occupational aspects of occupational contact dermatitis.
This concise guideline provides a framework for disease assessment, immediate treatment and referral to specialist care.
The guideline provides a summary of and draws attention to the full guidelines published by the BSR and BHPR.
This concise guideline summarises the TIA component of the updated National Clinical Guideline for stroke.
This guideline informs clinicians about the varied and frequently complex presentations of primary antibody deficiency syndromes.
This guideline summarises the recommendations from the UK national guidelines for HIV testing 2008.
This guideline aims to raise awareness of anaphylaxis in adults and its first-line treatment.
The aim of this guideline is to inform health and social care professionals on how best to manage advance care planning (ACP) in clinical practice.
This guideline focuses on the use of non-invasive ventilation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with acute type 2 respiratory failure.
This guideline is intended to inform professionals involved in the support of people in the later stages of long-term neurological conditions.
This guideline is aimed at healthcare professionals involved in the management of adults with SCI in the acute hospital setting.
This guideline focuses on pharmacological aspects of hypertension treatment with the objective of decreasing subsequent cardiovascular morbidity.
This guideline aims to provide simple and pragmatic advice for healthcare professionals in recognising and assessing pain.
Melanoma of the skin is an increasingly common tumour which usually occurs in white-skinned people, particularly those with pale, sun-sensitive skin and many moles. A fifth of cases occur in young adults, so the cancer has a large impact in terms of years of life lost.
Delirium (acute confusional state) is a common condition in the elderly, affecting up to 30% of all older patients admitted to hospital. The hospital environment often precipitates or exacerbates episodes of delirium.
This guideline will inform healthcare professionals about the identification and management of CKD, and which patients to refer for specialist care.
This guideline is aimed at general physicians, GPs and other clinicians involved in the management and rehabilitation of patients with ABI.
