Safe and effective clinical practice
How safe is the advice you get?
It seems like you can get advice almost everywhere these days. Turn on the television and any number of people will tell you how to live your life. So many magazines offer instant advice on a huge range of issues. It is often simplistic or simply wrong. It can still be hard to get good advice that is based on the most up to date research. Then when we get the advice, it can be too difficult to understand. This section of the website gives you some questions to ask before you decide to take on board some of the 'advice' you are given.
Who is giving this advice?
Most of the health staff working in the health service in the UK have to register with the General Medical Council (GMC), Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) or the Health Professions Council (HPC). There are also other specialist registers for psychotherapists. If you are not sure what staff do, check out our 'Who's Who' section of the website. You can check on the qualification of any health staff by looking at the website for their group. If the person giving you advice is not registered then this might mean that nobody is checking to see how qualified they are, how skilled they are, if they are safe, and have kept themselves up to date.
You are free to take advice from anyone that you wish, but it is a good idea to check out how much they know. Knowing how much they know helps you decide how far to take their advice. We can see on television some famous people who give advice that might be helpful to people but nobody is checking out how much they know and how safe their advice is. It might be a good idea to keep an open mind to and think through the things that people suggest.
What do they base their advice on?
There are different levels of evidence. Simply put the range includes:
Clinical trials
research trials that are done to see if certain types of care work or are better than others. The results from these trials are seen as better but sometimes not good for the real world.
Clinical experience
when a clinician works in a particular area for a long time they will know a lot about the area they work in. This can be really helpful as the clinician will start to notice certain things that are unique, but it might not be right for everyone, and the clinician might have missed some really up-to-date research if this is the only evidence they use.
Personal experience
sometimes people that have been through the same experience or had the same health problem will develop a special understanding of the problems that you face but they might not be aware of the wider picture or the most up to date research.
Again it is up to you which type of evidence you choose to go with but at least you can do so with some awareness of the pitfalls.
Why are they keen to give you advice?
In the UK health care is free. Information and self help are becoming more and more available. However sometimes there are long waiting lists to get care or advice and people have to look elsewhere for help. Some clinics that are offering private care will charge a lot of money for advice you can get free at the local library. So think carefully about what the person who is giving you advice is going to get in return. Perhaps you can do better yourself elsewhere.
In the end, it is up to each person to make up their own mind about taking on and acting on advice. When doing this using the who, what, why, when and where questions you will be making a more 'informed' decision.
NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has produced an information leaflet call How do you know your care is safe and effective? It has information on the systems that are in place to ensure that the care you get is safe and effective. This is mainly done through clinical governance and risk assessment.
