Clinical Guidelines—one year on

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) were delighted to publish the UK Ambulance Services Clinical Practice Guidelines a year ago. Many readers will of course be familiar with their appearance and content but perhaps less acquainted with their history and development. AACE are keen to ensure that they continue to be revised and improved in a timely manner and that they stay relevant to ambulance clinicians.

The process for revising and updating the guidelines is currently the subject of some discussion. AACE is looking to its National Ambulance Service Medical Directors (NASMeD) for advice on how ambulance services wish to communicate clinical guidelines in the future. Equally important is the question of how will staff wish to access guidelines and clinical updates in the years to come? Self-directed learning, pre-loaded ‘apps’, online reference material, printed pamphlets or complete reference books? Multiple opportunities arise and many different preferences exist.

The 2013 guidelines are already into their second iteration as the first print run of 60 000 copies soon sold out. The fact that we were reprinting this large book of guidelines so soon after the launch presented some ‘editorial’ difficulty. Should we change anything or keep the content the same? As with any project this size there were some small changes we needed to make by the way of typographical errors or improved grammar. A decision was also made to incorporate information on tourniquets that was published too late for earlier inclusion but not to make revisions throughout the book. Believe it or not we do not want clinicians feeling they need to buy a new copy every six months!