Preoperative tests: The use of routine preoperative tests for elective surgery
This is an extract from the guidance and may be misleading if read alone. The complete guidance is available at guidance.nice.org.uk/cg3
Introduction
The following guidance is based upon the best available evidence. All of the recommendations are grade D recommendations, which are based upon level IV evidence – that is, expert opinion derived from a consensus development process and the clinical experience of the Guideline Development Group. The full guideline (see Section 5) describes the methods used to develop the recommendations. In addition, the views of NHS clinicians were sought on the format and usability of these recommendations, and informed the development of this booklet.
The NICE guideline uses a traffic light system of red, amber and green shading. In this web version, the colours have been replaced by words: red has been replaced by 'no', amber has been replaced by 'consider' and green has been replaced by 'yes'.