Why we like clinical guidelines
- Mark FitzGerald1,
- Margaret A Kingston2,
- BASHH Clinical Effectiveness Group
- 1Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Taunton, Somerset, England
- 2Manchester Centre for Public Health, The Hathersage Centre, Manchester, England
- Correspondence to Dr Mark FitzGerald, Consultant in Genitourinary Medicine, Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton TA1 5DA, England; gu.med{at}tst.nhs.uk
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Contributors MF drafted the manuscript. MK contributed to the section on NHS evidence.
- Chlamydia infection
- gonorrhoea
- guideline development
- clinical care (general)
- non-specific urethritis
“What are the best things about BASHH (British Association for Sexual Health and HIV)?” was a question posed in the strategy consultation held in August 2011. Patient care and clinical governance was seen as an ‘extremely high’ priority for BASHH by almost everyone responding, and the ‘best thing’ chosen by 96% of the 258 members participating were the clinical guidelines (J Wilson, personal communication). These were given as the main reasons for using the BASHH website by 98% of those responding, and were said to be ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ relevant to their clinical practice. The usage figures for the website substantiate this, with the guidelines receiving nearly 100 000 hits each year,1 a dramatic growth since the first national guideline (gonorrhoea) was published in 1996.
At …
