Quality Standards and Guidelines

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Quality Standards

Clinicians can improve their quality of patient care and achieve excellence by clearly describing a high-quality, evidence-based service. The Royal College of Chiropractors Quality Standards are evidence-based tools designed to deliver the best possible patient outcomes.

Developed by expert teams and widely consulted on, the Quality Standards provides patients, the public, healthcare professionals, commissioners and chiropractors with clear definitions of high-quality chiropractic care.

Chiropractors are encouraged to adopt the Quality Standards as practice policy and use them as a source for clinic promotion, identifying CPD requirements, or tendering for NHS contracts.

The Standards enable healthcare professionals to understand the standard of service that chiropractors provide and allow commissioners to be confident that they are purchasing services of high quality. 

The Quality Standards also help patients understand what level of service they should expect from a chiropractor.

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Practice Standards

The Royal College of Chiropractors’ Chiropractic Practice Standards are a series of evidence-based documents designed to help chiropractors meet their obligations in the provision of high quality patient care and/or in ensuring good governance of their services. For each area of practice, they:

• Highlight relevant elements of the General Chiropractic Council’s Code as requirements
• Provide expected standards of practice informed by evidence
• Provide additional helpful guidance, and
• Provide a benchmark for normal practice

NICE Guidelines

NICE Guidelines are evidence-based recommendations developed by independent committees, including professionals and lay members, and consulted on by stakeholders. A number of these are of direct relevance to chiropractic practise:

• Low back pain and sciatica in over 16s: assessment and management (NG59)
• Osteoarthritis in over 16s: diagnosis and management (NG226)
• NICE Musculoskeletal conditions

NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries

NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries are not guidelines but are brief documents designed to provide primary care practitioners with a readily accessible summary of the current evidence base and practical guidance on best practice. Many are of direct relevance to chiropractic practice.