National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published updated 2014 head injury guidance which supersedes the clinical guideline 56 published in 2007.
The 2014 NICE guidance titled Head Injury: Triage, assessment, investigation and early management of head injury in children, young people and adults, focuses on both pre and in-hospital care of head injury.
It includes a number of recommendations relating to the clinical pathway for a patient who sustains head injury, in particular, the indications for transporting patients with a head injury from the scene of injury directly to the nearest neuroscience centre, bypassing the nearest emergency department; indications for and timing of CT head scans in the emergency department, with particular reference to anticoagulant therapy and levels of circulating brain injury biomarkers; the relative cost effectiveness of different strategies for initial imaging of the cervical spine; and information that should be provided to patients, family members and carers on discharge from the emergency department or observation ward.
