Standards of Care Committee

The Standards of Care Committee (SOCC) is a subcommittee of the BSACI whose aim is the development of guidelines for the management of patients with allergic disorders in secondary care. The committee is chaired by Dr. Shuaib Nasser and currently consists of 16 members including allergy specialists, paediatric allergists, immunologists, and junior allergists and is supported by Dr. Pia Huber the BSACI research officer. SOCC also interacts with and supports the BSACI primary care working group in the development of allergy guidelines for primary care. 

The process for the development of management guidelines comprises:  

• Planning which guidelines are needed.
• Deciding the important issues to be addressed by each guideline.
• Inviting experts in the field to draft a guideline.
• Iteration and refinement of the draft within SOCC.
• Web based consultation of the draft guideline with all BSACI members.
• Further development of the draft guidelines by SOCC by taking into account all comments received through the consultation.
• Submission for peer review publication.  
• Publication in an allergy journal and on the BSACI website and dissemination to other guideline websites, including the Royal College of Physicians (http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/college/ceeu/search/index.aspx?) and the NHS specialist library (http://www.library.nhs.uk/SpecialistLibraries/).

A schematic representation of the BSACI's guideline development can be downloaded here: BSACI Guideline Development Scheme

The published guidelines are freely accessible to BSACI members (BSACI members-only website). The more recent guidelines have also been made freely available on the Clinical and Experimental Allergy website and we hope that this arrangement will continue.

Guidelines are summarised and adapted for Primary Care to be published by e-Guidelines www.eguidelines.co.uk and/or  other allergy journals, e.g. The Primary Care respiratory journal.

Summary of each published guideline