NICE seeking your views on social care hot topics - Philippa Lynch

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 sets out a responsibility for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to develop quality standards and guidelines for social care in England. All guidelines produced by NICE have a strong evidence base, drawing on existing guidance in each area. The standards take the form of concise sets of prioritised statements designed to drive measurable quality improvements within a particular area of health or care.

NICE have a consultation underway seeking views from the sector on a list of proposed social care topics, with an encouragement to suggest new ones too. Responses must be submitted to socialcaretopics@nice.org.uk by 5pm on 9 October 2015. This is a joint consultation with the Department of Health (DH).

An initial set of topics has been referred by the Department of Health (DH) and Department for Education (DfE). In order to develop the longer term NICE social care work programme and improve care, the DH and NICE now want to hear from stakeholders to help decide on potential additional topics. This will inform the quality standards programme and where there are no existing relevant guidelines, this topic list will also inform the development of future guidelines.

The proposed topics are:

•  Adoption in looked-after children and young people
•  Assessment and care and support planning in adults
•  Care and support for people with an acquired physical impairment
•  Disabilities and complex needs in adults, children and young people
•  Fostering in looked-after children and young people
•  Maintaining independent living and preventing isolation in adults
•  Nutrition in care homes
•  Personal and intimate care in adults
•  Safeguarding in care homes
•  Short-term breaks (respite care) for people with social care needs and their carers
•  Support for adults, children and young people with sensory disabilities
•  Support for carers and young carers
•  Support for young parents in the community
•  Support in leaving care for looked-after children and young people
•  Supporting children in care homes: sexual orientation and preventing sexual exploitation
•  Supporting sexual identity in adults with social care needs
•  Supportive approaches and physical environments in care homes
•  Supportive approaches and physical environments in children's homes.

More details on these topics can be found here.