In April this year SDCEP gained accreditation from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for its clinical guidance process. SDCEP's is the only NICE accredited guidance process that is focused on dental healthcare.

NICE accreditation signifies independent recognition of the rigorous, high quality process that SDCEP uses to produce guidance. Users of NICE accredited guidance can have high confidence in the quality of the information provided.

SDCEP was established in 2006 and is an initiative of the National Dental Advisory Committee (NDAC) and part of NHS Education for Scotland (NES). SDCEP has produced guidance on a number of priority topics. Each guidance document is subject to wide consultation among the dental profession and those involved in dental education, for quality assurance and to ensure the guidance's applicability to primary care.

NICE accreditation is valid for five years and is applied retrospectively to SDCEP's guidance on periodontal care and anticoagulants, both of which were produced using the accredited process. Accredited guidance is highlighted and available worldwide through the NICE Evidence Search portal.

SDCEP works in close partnership with NES's Translation Research in a Dental Setting (TRiaDS) collaboration, which has been crucial to the success of SDCEP's application for NICE accreditation. It is through the work of TRiaDS that stakeholder views, current practice and potential barriers to implementation of guidance recommendations are identified and guidance implementation is evaluated.

TRiaDS also informs, designs and tests theoretically guided interventions to promote guidance implementation. In this way, TRiaDS is adding to our understanding of professional behaviour change in healthcare – informing which interventions work and in what circumstances.

Professor Martin Underwood, Chair of the NICE Accreditation Advisory Committee said:

“I am delighted to congratulate the programme on this achievement. The process used to produce the dental clinical guidance is systematic and transparent, with consideration of the strength of the evidence and benefits, risks and side effects.”

SDCEP Director Professor Jan Clarkson said:

“We are delighted to have successfully achieved NICE accreditation. This is not only recognition of the high quality guidance that SDCEP provides to improve patient care but also testament to TRiaDS' invaluable contribution to support its translation into everyday practice.”

Further details of the NICE Accreditation Programme, including the final accreditation report for SDCEP, are available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/accreditation

Table 1 SDCEP Guidance topics
Full size table

Further information about SDCEP guidance is available at: http://www.sdcep.org.uk/