What's involved in project participation?
Participating in a resource or review project group (RPG) can be a great opportunity to build your professional network, develop new knowledge and skills, and support continual professional development, providing useful evidence within HCPC audit or similar professional development frameworks.
The RPG meet regularly throughout the production process. The project is a team effort. It relies on each member’s contributions and commitment from set up to publication. You will be supported throughout by your NDR-UK project lead - they will manage and facilitate the process, complete literature searching and provide full administrative support at each stage.
- Resource project groups will work on new developments. Typically these projects take around 12 months to complete with up to 6 meetings, independent work and regular communication between meetings.
- Review project groups review and update current resources. These projects vary in length depending on the complexity or the topic and update requirements, so can take as little as 3 months to complete but may be longer and be more like a new development.
When projects start, we always go through the same steps to ensure a methodical approach and maintain the robust development/review process. Take a look at the description of each of the stages below to learn more about what's involved.
Defining the project
The first main task of any project is to prepare the project specification. This involves working with group members to discuss and agree:
- Project aims
- Care aims and learning outcomes for the patient and the person reading/using the resource(s)
- Nutrition and lifestyle guidance, and how to address any risks
- Any other relevant factors that may affect the reader’s ability to understand and/or apply the guidance within the resource(s) e.g. physical or communication factors, prior levels of knowledge and understanding etc.
Critically appraising the evidence
After drafting the resource specification, the next step is to find and appraise the evidence and best practice for the resource(s). Project group members will be asked for:
- key words/phrases and relevant organisations/professional bodies for an initial literature search
- relevant professional bodies/organisations and places to search for further information, practice guidelines and alternative resources.
NDR-UK will conduct searches and send you a shortlist of titles and abstracts to consider and request for full articles, reports, guidelines or alternative resources for critical appraisal. You will be asked to read and consider articles for critical appraisal with other project group members. The references to include in the evidence-base will be agreed by consensus and conclusions used to inform the resource development.
Literature searches and appraisal can be repeated until a satisfactory evidence base is achieved and agreed.
Preparing content
Upon agreeing the evidence-base and project specification, content development/review can begin. Tasks will be agreed to suit the resource(s) needs, structure and points of interest/expertise of individual group members.
NDR-UK will support by collating all the drafts, editing them to ensure plain English, house-style, clarity and readability standards are met, and specified aims, objectives and learning outcomes are achieved.
When the draft is agreed, NDR-UK will circulate it for the first review.
Peer and patient review
NDR-UK conducts reviews for all its new resources and any review resources where there is meaningful change to the content/presentation. Each review aims to seek feedback on how accurate, relevant, easy to use and fit for purpose each resource is.
Consulting expert peers, members of the target group and policy and strategy staff will ensure expertise, experience and prospective developments in the topic field are considered prior to publication.
Peer-review
Peer-reviewers are identified from:
- NDR-UK contacts (registered website users with noted interest in the relevant topic area)
- People who have noted interest in the project via NDR-UK’s website or other means
- NDR-UK stakeholders e.g. government and related policy contacts, BDA specialist (interest) groups etc.
- Project group members’ contacts – project group members will be asked to share review information with colleagues from their personal networks.
Patient-testing
Consulting members of the target group or intended recipient of the resource(s) can be a challenging but important and pivotal consultation stage - it highlights how effectively the draft engages with the target group and if it meets the identified learning outcomes.
The consultation method will depend on the resource topic, design and audience. All project group members will be asked to support/facilitate patient-testing and others may be approached to support it.
Feedback and risk assessment
Through each stage of drafting and review, feedback will be considered, and changes made by consensus amongst the project group. Upon final text being agreed by the group, text will be sent to one of NDR-UK’s professional dietetic advisors to risk assess.
NDR-UK risk assesses each of its resources to consider the level and types of potential risks to the public when reading and applying the information within a resource. Based on the assessment, each resource is categorised based on the level of support and/or follow up needed to mitigate any risk of harm. These are:
PiL - Patient Information Leaflet
Enforcement of healthy eating messages for self-management - advice is easily understood requiring no additional explanation.
HP - Health Professional
Advice requires some explanation from a Health Professional who has basic nutrition knowledge to enable correct implementation.
SHP - Specialist Health Professional
Advice requires detailed explanation from a specialist Dietitian or other Health Professional with appropriate nutritional knowledge, to enable correct understanding and implementation.
DT - Dietitian Only
Advice is complex, condition specific and requires a specialist Dietitian with knowledge, skills and experience in the condition.
Graphic design and publication
NDR-UK works with professional graphic designers to develop themes and typeset all of its published information. This can range from basic cover imagery to commissioned photography or illustration to engage the audience and achieve the learning outcomes defined in the project specification.
The design brief will be steered by project group ideas and opinions plus good practice notes and feedback from the reviews. NDR-UK will share design ideas and proofs with the project group, but must receive final approval from the project group lead before publication.
As standard, all resources will be published on NDR Prescribe to send electronically, and printed in hard copy format for sales and distribution.
Upon publication, all project group members will receive a certificate of participation printed copies of the resource(s) that their project develops.