The Bedside Clinical Guidelines Partnership Project

Introduction

The guidelines were written initially to support care for adult medical emergency admissions and to allow audit of that care at North Staffordshire Hospital.

The partnership was launched in May 1998, it was conceived on the premises that:
1. General acute adult medicine was a responsibility common to all Acute Trusts.
2. The guidelines must be explicitly evidence-based in future.
3. The guidelines must be annually reviewed.
4. The wider the user base for feedback, the more acceptable.

The "founder members" were:
• Dudley Group of Hospital NHS Trust
• East Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust (Macclesfield)
• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust (Leighton, Crewe)
• Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust
• North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust
• Princess Royal Hospital NHS Trust (Telford)
• Queens Hospital NHS Trust (Burton-on-Trent)
• Royal Shrewsbury Hospitals NHS Trust
• Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust
• Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust

City Hospitals NHS Trust (Birmingham) and University Hospitals NHS Trust Birmingham joined later.

The specialities covered have expanded over the years. The guidelines have been produced for use at the point of care of inpatients in general medicine, surgery and paediatrics.