NICE Talks

In this episode we discuss the role NICE plays in patient safety. The guests are: Professor Kevin Harris, senior responsible office for patient safety at NICE, and clinical advisor to the Interventional Procedures Programme and Professor Jane Blazeby, Professor of Surgery at University of Bristol.

Reducing health inequalities is part of NICE’s DNA. We offer evidence-based recommendations to help improve the health of communities.

The equitable implementation of NICE recommendations ensures that care provided is effective, makes efficient use of resources and reduces inequalities and unwarranted variation.

Taking part in this episode is NICE chief executive Dr Sam Roberts; was Dr Bola Owolabi, direcor of healthcare inequalities at NHS England; Dr Lesley Owen, a technical advisor at NICE; and Dr Aoife Molloy, a senior clinical advisor at the National Inequalities Improvement programme at NHS England.

Learn more about NICE's role in reducing health inequalities at: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/nice-and-health-inequalities

We speak to Consultant Respiratory Physician Dr Hitasha Rupani, Medicines Consultant Clinical Adviser at NICE Jonathan Underhill and asthma patient Sheba Joseph about NICE’s recently published patient decision aid on asthma inhalers and climate change. The aid supports people with asthma to consider whether they might be able to use inhalers which have a smaller carbon footprint as part of their treatment plan. You can view the patient decision aid by visiting the NICE website: https://bit.ly/3fnLt1K

In September 2022, NICE published its guideline on the assessment, management and preventing recurrence of self-harm. We speak to Professor Nav Kapur who was the topic expert on the committee. He outlines what the recommendations say and how people who self-harm can best be supported.

In this month’s NICE Talks podcast we speak to Dr Gail Allsopp, interim medical director at NICE, and Richard Jackson, patient advocate who was diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in 2006. We hear from Richard about his personal experience and Dr Gail Allsopp talks us through some of the current NICE recommended treatments, as well as what people can do to protect themselves from increased risk.

On this month's podcast we find out more about the launch of NICE's early value assessment programme in medical technology.

This pilot will look at least 10 medical technologies, of which at least six will be digital health technologies, and provide quicker assessments of early value to identify the most promising technologies that can be used in the NHS.

Our guests are Mark Chapman, NICE’s interim director of Medical Technology, and Andrew Davies, digital health lead at the ABHI.

This month’s NICE Talks podcast focusses on NICE’s new guideline on social work with adults experiencing complex needs. We chat with Rebecca Harrington, who chaired the NICE committee which developed the guideline, Bryn Lloyd-Evans, an associate professor working in the division of psychiatry at UCL, and Ellie, a service user who was a lay member of the NICE guideline committee, about the positive impact the recommendations will have for people using social work services.

In May 2022, NICE published medical technologies guidance on Sleepio to treat insomnia. It is the first digital therapeutic for treating insomnia recommended by NICE.

In this episode we'll learn more about the technology and the process NICE went through to evaluate it.

Our guests are Anastasia Chalkidou, associate director of the Medical technologies evaluation programme at NICE. And Professor Colin Epsie, founder and chief scientist at Big Health, the company behind Sleepio.

In her first interview with NICE Talks, chief executive Sam Roberts gives her initial thoughts of the organisation, her plans for the next 12 months and outlines how she plans to tackle some of the challenges. She reflects on how NICE will adapt to new drugs, digital technologies, devices and diagnostics and explains how she plans to build upon the solid foundations established by her predecessors.

In this episode we talk about NICE's recently published guideline on integrated health and social care services for people experiencing homelessness.

The guideline was developed in partnership with the Centre for Homelessness Impact and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The guideline outlines how people experiencing homelessness can access services tailored for their needs. It highlights that more effort and targeted approaches are often needed to ensure that people experiencing homelessness have access to the same standard of health and social care as the general population.

We spoke to Guillermo Rodriguez-Guzman, Head of Evidence and Data at the Centre for Homelessness Impact and Rachel Johns, deputy regional director at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and Chair of the NICE guideline committee on homelessness.