Introduction

The introduction to this book illustrates how NICE’s policymaking work affects real patients’ lives, before summarising NICE’s importance in more general policy terms. The authors position this volume as a work of history, complementing other works on NICE with different disciplinary perspectives. Sources, notably witness testimony, are discussed and their reliability examined. Since this book is organised thematically rather than chronologically, a timeline of key events is provided as an aid. Chapter content is summarised, and the authors explain why the book’s scope ends in early 2020. Finally, the book’s origin is explained within the research focus on the ‘Governance of Health’, looking at the key groups involved in developing UK health policy in recent decades: doctors, health economists, managers and management consultants.