ABSTRACT
There is a growing recognition of the value of clinical guidelines in bringing research evidence into practice. They are here to stay and all relevant professional and higher education organisations should consider how best to promote the use of guidelines for individual specialties in basic and continuing education programmes. Within the broader context of nursing education and training, there has been an important enabling role in implementing published guidelines into routine practice through reflective practice and clinical supervision. Time is an important resource and needs to be made available to enable nurses and other clinicians to be involved in the development of local guidelines and in training for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of guidelines. This should be recognised as an important investment for clinical governance and for improving the quality of patient care. Effective and widespread use of appropriate clinical guidelines will help nurses to raise the standards of care and to be able to demonstrate this through completing the clinical audit loop with continuous and ongoing monitoring and evaluation. Nurses need to gather this evidence to demonstrate that the clinical guidelines do work, that the guidelines can influence nursing practice and behaviour and to demonstrate cost and clinical effectiveness. There should be close links between clinical audit, clinical guideline development and the monitoring of changes in health outcomes through the nursing care improvement model. Clinical guidelines can enhance nursing practice and demonstrate the importance of evidence-based nursing care and the professional application of clinical governance.
