Introduction
What are CKS topics?
In September 2012, Clarity Informatics was awarded a contract, commissioned and funded by NICE, to provide clinical content for a new Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) service available through the NICE website and aimed at a primary and first contact care audience in the UK.
CKS topics provide primary care practitioners with concise, readily accessible summaries of the current evidence base and practical guidance and advice on best practice in respect of over 330 topics consisting of 1000 clinical presentations or patient scenarios. These topics cover the most significant and commonly occurring presentations in primary care and the clinical content is continually monitored and reviewed.
Why we need volunteer reviewers
The information produced is primarily used by primary care practitioners but we need to hear your opinions to ensure that the needs of the patient are being considered during the development of this information.
We need unbiased opinions on the work that our authors produce and so rely on volunteers to read the draft versions of topics and provide feedback before they are published.
Registering as a volunteer reviewer
Registering as a volunteer with us is really easy. All we need you to do is send us an email confirming you would like to take part along with the Declaration of Interests form and send it back to cks-enquiries@clarity.co.uk. You can also sign up through our do-it.org page.
This is a chance for us to establish what you’re interested in providing feedback on so if you have a particular interest in certain topics or you are happy to be considered for anything; let us know.
Declaration of Interest
It is a requirement that anyone involved in reviewing CKS topics completes and signs a declaration of interest. This includes any individual (or organization) involved in developing, reviewing, or commenting on clinical content, particularly the recommendations, should declare competing interests. This includes CKS authoring team members, expert advisers, lay members, external reviewers of draft CKS topics, individuals providing feedback on published CKS topics, and Editorial Steering Group members.
Copies of these forms are securely held by Clarity Informatics and are available on request with the permission of the individual.
Competing interests of all those involved in the topic update or development are listed in the Declarations section in How this topic was developed? for each topic.
Competing interests include:
- Personal financial interests
- Personal family interest
- Personal non-financial interest
- Non-personal financial gain or benefit
Although particular attention is given to interests that could result in financial gains or losses for the individual, competing interests may also arise from academic competition or for political, personal, religious and reputational reasons.
The Review Process
Once we have received your Declaration of Interest form we will be able to offer you topics to review when they are ready.
The process of reviewing topics is very straightforward. An outline of what it involves is below.
Read the current version of the topic
The current versions of all of the topics can be found on the NICE CKS website. Unless you are reviewing a brand new topic, the first step is to have a read through the existing topic and to let us know if you have any general comments or suggestions for changes. Any feedback can be sent through to us via email.
Review the draft topic
When the new draft version of the topic is complete we will send this to you via email. We ask that you read through the draft using the feedback form to answer the questions provided.
The questions mainly focus on the relationship between patient and practitioner, however we encourage you to send across any opinions or questions you have on the topics. You are not limited to just what's on the form.
Send in your feedback
In order to ensure we receive your feedback before the the topic is published, a deadline will be set. This can vary but we will always look to give the most time possible for you to send in your views. We will always give at least one week. We are fully aware that some people wish to be more involved than others and that people are able to dedicate varying amounts of time to the topics. We appreciate any level of feedback that you feel able to give.
Completed feedback forms and any other comments should be sent to cks-enquiries@clarity.co.uk on or before the deadline given.
If you have further queries, please see the FAQs page or contact us via email.