UK SMI News

Closure of NICE Accreditation Programme

As you may be aware, the UK SMI development process has been NICE accredited since October 2009. Unfortunately, NICE has decided to close its accreditation programme for all guidance producers. As a result of this, NICE has requested for all information relating to NICE accreditation to be removed from their webpages and future documents. For further information about the closure of the NICE accreditation programme, please see the NICE website.

The fundamentals of UK SMI development process will not change. Our intention is to continue to develop UK SMIs using the criteria set out by the NICE accreditation programme and in line with the Appraisal of Guidelines Research & Evaluation (AGREE) Instrument with slight modifications. The key elements include:

• Scope and purpose – overall aim of the guideline
• Stakeholder involvement – role and expectations of stakeholders
• Rigour of development – gathering and summarising the evidence
• Clarity of presentation – technical guidance
• Applicability – barriers and facilitators to implementation
• Editorial independence – identifying potential biases

We are committed to ensuring the development of UK SMIs will continue to a high quality.

The process for developing UK SMIs is certified to ISO 9001:2015.

Update on UK SMI B 05, UK SMI ID 12 and UK SMI ID 17

We would like to update you on the progress of the three documents that were recently out for consultation. These documents are:

1. UK SMI B 05 – Investigation of nasal and paranasal sinus samples
2. UK SMI ID 12 – Investigation of Haemophilus species and other HACEK organisms
3. UK SMI ID 17 – Investigation of Pseudomonas species and other non-glucose fermenters

The comments from the consultation have been discussed with the relevant working group. Following this, they have been sent to the medical editor for final edits, and we hope that they will be published soon.

A Special Thank you

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the working groups whose tenure of membership has ended. We have greatly appreciated the input of members on the steering committee, bacteriology and virology working groups, who have helped develop UK SMI documents. Thank you to Dr Mark Wilks, Dr Martin Connor, Dr Michael Lockhart, Dr Michael Weinbren, Dr Priya Khanna, Dr Tanya Curran, and Dr Silke Schelenz for all their contributions. We wish them well in all their future endeavours!

Call for Honorary Medical Editor

The Standards team are currently advertising for a second honorary medical editor in clinical bacteriology. This is a voluntary role that involves independently editing UK SMI documents before publication. We encourage anyone in one of our partner organisations with experience in diagnostic microbiology and editing scientific literature for publication to get in touch with your UK SMI representative. The call will close on 27th September 2024.

Upcoming Consultations

We are pleased to inform you that we will have several consultations opening in the coming months. These consultations include revisions to:

• UK SMI V 37: Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea infection - Testing by Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (NAAT)
• UK SMI ID 01: Introduction to the preliminary identification of bacteria and fungi.

If you have an interest in any of these documents, please comment when the consultations open.

We are also planning to publish a new document, UK SMI S 13: Painful and/or discharging ear, within the next few months.

To be notified when new documents are issued or new consultations open, we encourage you to subscribe to UK SMIs for notifications.

Hyperlinks in UK SMI documents

Dear UK SMI Users,

As you’ve probably noticed, we have removed the UK SMIs documents from the GOV.UK.

The hyperlinks embedded in the documents that link between UK SMIs will require time to update. During this period, we appreciate your patience as we undertake this work. In the meantime, please browse through the categories using the title and document number to locate your desired UK SMI document. For instance, to view "UK SMI S 2: Pneumonia," go to the Syndromic category and select the document from the dropdown menu using the title and number.

If you have any feedback about the new site, we’d love to hear from you. Please email [email protected]

UK SMI Updates: April 2024

So far this year, we have published revisions to 2 documents, UK SMI ID 06: Identification of Neisseria species and UK SMI ID 15: Identification of Actinomyces species.

We are in the process of reviewing several documents and hope to send them out for consultation within the next few months. Please comment on any consultations for documents that may interest you. We encourage you to please subscribe to UK SMIs for updates by email when documents are issued or public consultations open. For any further queries, please contact [email protected].