Professional Regulation and Medical Guidelines

This book addresses the fundamental question of the creation of medical guidelines in healthcare systems, critiques the current state of 'evidence-based' guideline-making in England and the Netherlands, and demonstrates how the development of guidelines involves a series of subjective choices driven by economic, cultural, institutional and political forces. Four case studies, on lower back pain and on type 2 diabetes in England and the Netherlands, are used to provide a detailed empirical account of the development of medical guidelines.