Rapid Responses to:
|
|
Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
-
![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Re: BMJ Editorial, Patient and Public Involvement in Clinical Trials
- Peter Littlejohns (23 May 2008)
-
NICE's ordinaries
- Michael O'Donnell (27 May 2008)
-
Welcome correction
- Hazel Thornton (5 June 2008)
|
|
|||
|
Peter Littlejohns, NICE Clinical and Public Health Director NICE, WC1V 6NA
Send response to journal:
|
We welcome the support for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's (NICE) Citizens Council in the editorial by Hazel Thornton (BMJ 2008;336:903-904 (26 April), http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/336/7650/903 ) . There is, however, an inaccuracy about the remit of the Citizens Council which is important to correct. The Citizens Council at NICE is made up of 30 ordinary members of the public, reflecting the age, gender, socioeconomic status and ethnicity of the people of England and Wales. It is a formal committee of the Institute, helping develop the broad social values that should underpin NICE guidance. The Citizens Council doesn’t contribute to individual decisions about the prioritisation of healthcare resources, nor decide whether interventions should be approved or rejected, as indicated in the article. While the activities of the Citizens Council inform the development of processes used by NICE to develop its guidance, it is NICE's independent advisory bodies that actually make NICE guidance recommendations, including decisions about the prioritisation of healthcare resources. All NICE guidance is developed by independent advisory committees or groups. Each committee or group includes at least two (often more) lay people (patients, carers and members of the public) who, as committee members, ensure that patient, carer and public views and experiences contribute directly to making NICE guidance recommendations. They consider clinical trial evidence but also other published research as well as evidence submitted by 'stakeholders', both professionals and patient carer and voluntary organisations. More information about how NICE involves patients and the public is available at www.nice.org.uk/getinvolved . Yours sincerely Professor Peter Littlejohns NICE Clinical and Public Health Director Competing interests: None declared |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Michael O'Donnell, Former GP. Journeyman writer and broadcaster Loxhill GU8 4BD
Send response to journal:
|
How clever of NICE to find 30 ordinary people. I spent 11 years of my life, and a BBC coffer or two, in vain pursuit of those elusive creatures. Not that I expected to find them. One of my motives for writing Relative Values was to share something I’d learned as a GP. Look behind the social facade of an “ordinary” family and you find extraordinary individuals with extraordinary tales to tell. Not only is the adjective patronising, “You are ordinary, ergo we are not”, but the mind set that produces it is the same that nurtures racism, sexism, ageism and all the other isms that help us typecast groups too bothersome to treat as individuals. And what are we to make of NICE’s claim, articulated by its clinical and public health director[1] that its Citizens Council “is made up of 30 ordinary members of the public, reflecting the age, gender, socioeconomic status and ethnicity of the people of England and Wales”? I would like, as NICE might put it, to see the evidence base on which that claim is founded. I’ve just calculated that I would need 19 of NICE’s ordinaries to reflect “the age, gender … etc” of just the members of my extended family. NICE is a useful institution and has retained its integrity in the face of sometimes venomous assault. It’s therefore sad to see it giving succour, albeit vicariously, to those who use “public consultation” as a euphemism for “public relations”. Pollsters in search of useful opinion, like epidemiologists in search of hard evidence, prefer to count their samples not in tens but in thousands. The reality is that NICE can draw on the opinion of 30 disparate individuals. This opinion may be helpful but the notion that it reflects the opinion of mythical “ordinary” people is as fanciful as the claim of the self- proclaimed “counsellor” who recently told me he knew exactly how I felt as a “bereaved person” then proceeded to show not one glimmer of understanding of the feelings of this bereft individual. Michael O'Donnell mod@doctors.org.uk 1. Littlejohns P. Rapid response re: BMJ Editorial, Patient and Public Involvement in Clinical Trials www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/336/7650/903#195984 Competing interests: None declared |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Hazel Thornton, Honorary Visiting Fellow, Departmnet of Health Science, University of Leicester "Saionara", 31 Regent Street, Rowhedge, Colchester, CO5 7EA
Send response to journal:
|
I should like to thank Professor Peter Littlejohns, NICE Clinical and Public Health Director, for his kindly response to my editorial about Patient and Public Involvement in Clinical Trials. (BMJ 2008;336:903-904 (26 April), http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/336/7650/903 ) It made a necessary and important correction about the rôle of the Citizens Council within NICE: my words were ill-chosen and incorrect, inaccurately portraying the Citizens Council`s function. Competing interests: None declared |
|||