ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the facilitators, worked with the Citizens Council to answer questions posed by National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The NICE brief was very clear: 30 ordinary members of the public from all walks of life but with no links to the National Health Service. The chapter develops a demographic profile in conjunction with NICE to try and gain a cross-section of the population. It deals with a two-day induction in London and the Council members met the Board of NICE and began to find out about NICE's work – up till then, for a number of members, viewpoints about NICE had been shaped purely by the popular press. NICE explained to the Citizens Council that it had set up the Council to help it deliberate on social value judgements. NICE recognised that value judgements required a different kind of expertise, and who better than a group of 'ordinary people drawn from all walks of life'.
