Total hip replacement - College of Occupational Therapists

4 Guideline development process
Detailed information on the following steps within the guideline development process
can be found in the Practice guidelines development manual (COT 2011a).
4.1 The guideline development group
The membership of the core guideline development group (see Appendix 1 for full list)
comprised six occupational therapists with expertise and experience in the field of
orthopaedics and/or older people. It was determined that given the very specific
occupational therapy nature of this practice guideline, the core group would be
profession specific, with the expertise required from other stakeholders and service
users most effectively obtained outside of core group meetings, via a reference group
and consultation.
The core group members were all practicing therapists, undertaking the guideline
development work mainly in their private time, with support from employers to attend
meetings. To facilitate the progress of the guideline development, much of the liaison
and activity undertaken by group members was therefore carried out at a distance,
using email correspondence to effect communications.
Two members of the College of Occupational Therapists’ Research and Development
Team were co- opted as additional critical appraisers. The research and development
manager at the College was also co- opted to take on the role of editorial lead.
4.2 Stakeholder involvement
Stakeholders with a potential interest in the guideline development were identified by
the core group membership at the preliminary guideline meeting. Specific attention
was given to identifying professional colleagues who may be working as part of the
multidisciplinary team, and national voluntary organisations that may represent service
users.
Identified stakeholders were subsequently contacted and invited to comment on a draft
scope document. Feedback was reviewed and, where indicated, incorporated into the
final scope document, which was then submitted to the College of Occupational
Therapists’ Practice Publications Group for approval.
Stakeholders who expressed an interest in remaining involved became the virtual
guideline development stakeholder reference group. The members of this group
represented professional bodies and clinical experts within medicine, nursing,
physiotherapy and social work as follows:
Stakeholder reference group
• Royal College of Surgeons of England
• British Hip Society
• Royal College of Nursing
College of Occupational Therapists
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