National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is a UK government body that approves treatments for use within the UK National Health Service (NHS) with the mission to improve health and social care through evidence-based guidance.

Online tools

 * NICE Pathways – Mapping our guidance
 * Find guidance
 * Standards and Indicators
 * Evidence Search

Media coverage
NICE is involved in a wide variety of treatments for many health and social issues. The Guardian has a collection of articles here.

CFS/ME treatment guidelines
NICE guidelines recommend Graded exercise therapy (GET) and Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as treatments for CFS/ME patients.

Review, remove or revise NICE guidelines
Patients and patient advocacy groups are not in favor of the NICE guidelines and on June 25th 2014 the Forward-ME Group met with Prof Mark Baker, Director of the Centre for Clinical Practice at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)]. Professor Baker that the ME/CFS Guideline did not meet patient needs nor those of NICE. He said the Guideline did not promote innovation and only a "passive" intervention such as CBT and Graded Exercise. "There was not much of an evidence base to go on, and in NICE it was evidence that drove guidance."

Margaret Williams noted: "Research that directly impinges on the safety of the NICE recommendations for graded exercise (which was available to the GDG) was also excluded from consideration and / or ignored. This was a serious omission." The recommendation of GET should be incrementally increased to Aerobic exercise was in direct contradiction to ME/CFS experts. Paul Cheney explained “The most important thing about exercise is not to have them do aerobic exercise. I believe that even progressive aerobic exercise, especially in phase one and possibly in other phases, is counter-productive. If you have a defect in the mitochondrial function and you push the mitochondria by exercise, you kill the DNA” (Lecture given in Orlando, Florida, February 1999, at the International Congress of Bioenergetic Medicine).

Doctor Speedy weighs in with Is it NICE guidelines or NONSENSE guidelines? and the ME Association's Dr. Charles Shepherd pointed out during a meeting with Dr. Martin McShane of NHS England "that graded exercise therapy was causing harm to patients and that if a drug was causing harm, guidelines would be reviewed immediately."

Office locations and contact information

 * London


 * National Institute for Health and Care Excellence


 * 10 Spring Gardens


 * London


 * SW1A 2BU


 * Telephone: +44 (0)300 323 0140


 * Fax: +44 (0)300 323 0748


 * e-mail: nice@nice.org.uk


 * Manchester


 * National Institute for Health and Care Excellence


 * Level 1A, City Tower


 * Piccadilly Plaza


 * Manchester


 * M1 4BT


 * Telephone: +44 (0)300 323 0140


 * Fax: +44 (0)300 323 0149


 * e-mail: nice@nice.org.uk

Online presence

 * Linked In
 * Newsletters and Alerts
 * Twitter
 * You Tube
 * Website