Article Text
Letter to the editor
How effective are guidelines for the management of low back pain?
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The National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE) recently published its first referral practice guide for general practitioners containing inter alia referral advice for acute low back pain.1 The NICE guidelines are to be evaluated in pilot schemes before being disseminated nationally. Six years have passed since the publication of the Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG) report on back pain2 and it is four years since the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) issued its own guidelines for the management of acute low back pain.3 Changes in practice introduced in response to these documents might give an indication of the likely success of the NICE guidelines in altering referral patterns and the …