The new NICE guidance on antimicrobial prophylaxis against infective endocarditis

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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7498 p476, 481
19 April 2008

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The new NICE guidance on antimicrobial prophylaxis against infective endocarditis

New guidance from NICE on antimicrobial prophylaxis against infective endocarditis offers best practice advice that is vastly different from current practice. Nick Cooley discusses the new NICE guideline and compares it with previous guidance from other sources

Sources of patient information on infective endocarditis

Become involved with NICE

Nick Cooley is lead clinical pharmacist, antimicrobials, at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London.

He is a member of the antibiotics group of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association and represented the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and UKCPA on the NICE development group for the guideline on infective endocarditis

SUMMARY

The latest guideline produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (the second “short” guideline) has been developed to offer best practice advice to the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on antimicrobial prophylaxis against infective endocarditis (IE) before an interventional procedure.

It caters for adults and children in primary dental care, primary medical care, secondary care and care in community settings.

In contrast to other recently published national and international guidelines, the NICE guideline explicitly considers the likely cost effectiveness as well as the clinical effectiveness of antibiotic prophylaxis.

As a result, the guidance represents a major shift from current accepted practice and therefore it is essential that both appropriate and consistent information is provided to healthcare professionals and patients alike.

The following commentary explains some of the rationale for these decisions and highlights the key recommendations.

FULL TEXT article (PDF 40K)

Sources of patient information on infective endocarditis

Useful patient information can be found in the NICE information leaflet “Understanding NICE guidance: preventing infective endocarditis” (PDF 70K)

Other useful sources of patient literature include the following:

The British Heart Foundation

The British Dental Health Foundation

The Children’s Heart Foundation

The Faculty of General Dental Practice (UK) lay advisory group

The Grown Up Congenital Heart Patients Association

Become involved with NICE

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is actively working to increase the profile of and properly reflect pharmacy issues within National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance. To do this, we need to input into NICE consultations and/or to participate in the development groups.

Pharmacists are already members of most NICE guideline developments groups, but NICE regularly requires pharmacists with clinical experience and specialist knowledge to participate in these groups.

If you work within a particular specialty, I would highly recommend participating in the consultation process and applying to sit as a member of a guideline development group when the opportunity arises.

If you are interested in getting involved in NICE guideline development groups or consultations, contact Meghna Joshi at the Society for further information (tel 020 7572 2612; e-mail meghna.joshi@rpsgb.org).