'Paula Whitty and Martin Eccles have produced a guide to the guidelines and made it highly readable as well as useful. It covers a wide range of topics including the nuts and bolts of guideline development potential pitfalls of using or not using guidelines details of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence and its collaborating centres reference to equivalent work in Scotland and feedback on the process of using guideless at trust and primary care level. The authors have achieved something important and useful: their book is accessible to all those who need to read it - managers clinicians and trainees.' Professor Louis Appleby in his Foreword 'With over 50 clinical practice guidelines in development the UK's National Health Service has probably the largest guideline programme of any healthcare system in the world. Although seemingly directed towards mental health this book has universal applicability and will be invaluable to anyone to get involved with guideline development and implementation.' Professor Sir Michael Rawlins in his Foreword