Hi everyone

The NICE Head and Neck Cancers Guidelines , are now out for first consultation. 114 pages of it! At first glance, looks good - quite a bit about the importance of oral care of the mouth. Restorative Dentistry is mentioned .

Shame that the NICE people don't mention the benefit of using this Head & Neck Cancer website, specially designed for patient and carer information and support .

If you do read it, I would be interested in your comments.

Best wishes

Vinod

:coffee:

UPDATE: Comments welcomed.

quote:

---

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has now announced the revised Head and Neck Cancer Service Guidance open for 2nd Consultation.
The revised draft of the Head and Neck Cancer Service Guidance will be available on the NICE website from 18 May 2004. The second consultation period will be from 18 May to 15 June 2004.

There are three documents presented here - the full version of the guidance, the evidence review (including the economic review) and information explaining the recommendations in easy-to-understand language - have been prepared for the second round of consultation.

The full version describes the evidence and views that have been considered and sets out the provisional service guidance recommendations that have been developed - these may have been revised in the light of comments made during the first consultation period.

The evidence review is a summary of the evidence used to develop the guidance. The economic review is an analysis of the potential costs impact of the guidance on cancer services.

The information for the public has been prepared to help people who may be affected by the guidance recommendations understand what the provisional recommendations mean; this information was not available during the first consultation period.

---

Dr. J, so far I've only managed to read the "Information for Patients" section.

From my very limited knowledge I think that Bradford (BRI/St. Lukes)are pretty well advanced in implementing most of the NICE recommendations. Multi-disciplinary teams, specialist nurses etc.. Obviously I can't comment regarding thyroid cancer.

From my own experience once I was referred to BRI by my dentist (Dr. Matharoo in Shipley) I was astonished at the speed with which things happened.

However, my GP in Halifax didn't spot my real problem but did refer or tried to refer me to Halifax General. Perhaps I should mention here that I initially visited my GP with the problem approx. 6 weeks before my dental visit.

Now I've no complaint that my GP didn't diagnose my cancer, after all a GP can't be an expert in everything. I was, however, somewhat dismayed at the delay in being notified of an appointment in Halifax. I had actually already been admitted to BRI when the letter arrived and the appointment for for a week or two later. I don't know which department or which consultant I was supposed to see as my wife was so incensed the threw the letter away.

Well that's my moan out of the way.

Like you I'm disappointed that there's no link or reference to "our site". Can anything be done to rectify such a glaring omission?