Guidelines Author Guidance

GGC Paediatric Guidelines
NHS GGC

Objectives

This author guidance has been written to assist you in the process of compiling your guideline in a way that will ensure it displays well and is easily searchable within the app. If a word appears in bold in this guidance we would strongly encourage you to put something in this field, if a word is underlined, this topic will apply to some guidelines only.

If you need further advice on the structure please email graham.bell@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Objectives: Please supply us with one or two sentences stating the objectives/ terms of reference for the advice within your document. The guideline reviewers will be asked; referring to sections objectives, scope and audience is the guideline’s purpose clear?

 

 

Scope

Scope: This field defines the area of use e.g. within PICU only / all patients under the care of the ... them / all children in hospital with ... / all children with ... during admission & in the community.

It may be more appropriate to define scope as to which patients the guideline does not apply to; e.g. all children except neonates / children with DI unless following neurosurgery etc.

We have many users in primary care, if appropriate please consider including appropriate advice for referral and appropriate care pending specialist consultation.

If you need further advice on the structure please email graham.bell@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Audience

Audience: The app is intended for health professionals & states this on the opening page, if you need to be more specific about who should be responsible for enacting advice within your guideline than please state so here

In addition to the official set of CE approved clinical guidelines, the app will display any information written by your department that you consider would be helpful to health professionals at the point of care.

Keywords

Keywords to aid searching: these don’t have to be MESH keywords. use any words that might direct a user search to your app abbreviations are allowed, IDDM JET GCS  Ventolin epipen  = all fine, however CF DI Na K O2won’t work as the search facility only triggers when 3 characters have been entered. The keywords don’t even have to appear in your text & won’t appear on the displayed app, they will aid searching.

Literature search

Knowledge services will also use the keywords to perform a literature search to obtain relevant information for consideration when your guideline is due for review so the better considered the keywords are the better the quality of the search the corresponding author will receive. This search will be sent around 3 months prior to the review date on your guideline.

Algorithms

Algorithms- please construct these where you can as we know these are a popular way for medical staff to begin accessing information, the App editorial team may restructure to conform with our standard formatting. Algorithms should contain sufficient information that they can stand alone as basic guidance documents.

Images

Pictures are allowed but note that text embedded in the picture might not be searched using the app search facility you may wish to add important embedded terms as keywords. Pictures are subject to copyright as well – so please include the source of your picture & any relevant copyright permissions (e.g. you may have downloaded an image from a manufacturers website, most are happy to supply permissions when requested)

Videos

Videos- are allowed. Files can be uploaded to the GGC Youtube account and then embedded on the guideline page. 

Calculators

Calculators e.g. drug dose. These will be allowed in future versions but they are subject to medical device regulations and have a separate approval process which means your guideline may spend longer in the approval stage before we can publish on the app, in some instances the calculators will have a separate copyright process as well. Written formulae are fine - is only where the device does the calculation for you that extra regulations apply.

We will happily display links to calculators hosted on other sites.

Copyright issues

Copyright Issues, if your guideline uses scores or calculators these may require copyright permissions, the App editorial team can advise you on this process.

Please ensure that if you use any images, diagrams etc that have been taken from another source (including the internet) you have checked with the author/rights holder for permission to re-use and that you correctly reference these (acknowledge author/source etc).

Contact information

Telephone numbers: formatting of numbers, list by professional title, not by individual name where possible. If you include mobile numbers, be aware this app will be freely available on GooglePlay & itunes app store so you MUST indicate to us that you have the users permission . Please include full BT codes as well as hospital extensions in order that we can facilitate direct dialling from mobiles.

Email: if you are happy to be emailed by website / app users about guideline content then please include your email as part of the contacts information. If users use the feedback facility then the app team will forward their comments to the corresponding author.

Linked or related guidelines

Internal GGC children’s relating to this guideline?, any adult NHSGGC guidelines concerning the same subject area?  Scotland wide e.g. public health? or SIGN any national e.g. NICE or Royal College. Please let us know of any guidelines that may relate to you own, it greatly assists users to put information in context.

If your guideline won’t be able to keep pace with rapidly changing information on certain aspects then please find a link for the most authoritative site (e.g. advice on Zika virus) & we will display this.

Review process

There is a new review process based upon the template below, if you submit a new guideline or revision you will be asked to complete the template, although the revision will often be a confirmation of the original submission with a note to say the relevant departmental group had approved the guidance for continuing display. A copy of this template will be saved alongside the guideline although not visible to users of the app / website.

The changes are

1 Review is now a responsibility of local clinical groups and its expected that guideline review would become a standing item on departmental meetings, lead authors may be present at these meetings but should not lead the discussion on their own guidelines.

2 There is be a greater requirement to document a pharmacy check for drug information within a guideline

3 After departmental approval the process is email submission, then usually some reformatting & editorial checks prior to publishing. There are no higher meetings or submission deadlines

Guideline review template

Paediatric Guidelines Review Template (Word doc) (last updated Feb25)

If there are fields that don't apply in the template then please complete what you can & our editorial team will help out with the rest.  The simplest process will be for the lead author to review the content then changes are agreed by the department at a regular meeting in a discussion that takes note of the various agree domains for approval as listed in the template. For reviews (as opposed to new guideline approvals) the "rigour of development & stakeholder involvement” domains are the most relevant, many of the other categories can be answered "done as per original version" & initialled by your guideline lead / lead author prior to submission.

Content approval is for your departmental group to agree. Editorial checks will follow, these may include standardisation of titles / subtitles, formatting, checking the approval template, assisting with external opinions if req. and checking that recommendations do not contradict other local guidance or existing RHC hospital practice. The guideline group will also deal with any copyright issues, if you have ‘borrowed’ content, just highlight this in notes above.

Editorial Information

Last reviewed: 25/02/2025

Next review date: 30/11/2027

Author(s): As with journal publications we would like the guideline authors to denote an author who is willing to accept correspondence concerning the guideline this should be a permanent staff member, there will be a formalised process where the App team will forward feedback about specific guideline content back to the authors but if you wish to include your email as well, please do so..

Version: 2

Author email(s): graham.bell@ggc.scot.nhs.uk.

Approved By: Other

Reviewer name(s): Reviewers name will apppear here.