The NICE Clinical Guidelines Update Team update discrete parts of published clinical guidelines as requested by NICE’s Guidance Executive.

Suitable topics for update are identified through the new surveillance programme (see surveillance programme interim guide).

These guidelines are updated using a standing Committee of healthcare professionals, research methodologists and lay members from a range of disciplines and localities. For the duration of the update the core members of the Committee are joined by up to 5 additional members who are have specific expertise in the topic being updated, hereafter referred to as ‘topic-specific members’.

In this document where ‘the Committee’ is referred to, this means the entire Committee, both the core standing members and topic-specific members.

Where ‘standing Committee members’ is referred to, this means the core standing members of the Committee only.

Where ‘topic-specific members’ is referred to this means the recruited group of members with topic-specific expertise.

All of the standing members and the topic-specific members are fully voting members of the Committee.

Details of the Committee membership and the NICE team can be found in appendix A. The Committee members’ declarations of interest can be found in appendix B.