Draft Australian Clinical Guidelines for Health Professionals Managing People with Whiplash-Associated Disorders

SIRA is seeking feedback on the draft Australian Clinical Guidelines for Health Professionals Managing People with Whiplash-Associated Disorders, Fourth Edition (Guidelines).

  • The Issue

    Consultation period: 05/06/2023 9:00 am to 05/07/2023 5:00 pm

    What is this about?

    SIRA is seeking feedback on the draft Australian Clinical Guidelines for Health Professionals Managing People with Whiplash-Associated Disorders (Guidelines).

    The draft Guidelines are intended to improve health, quality of life and social outcomes of people with whiplash associated disorders (WAD) by providing best-practice recommendations for health professionals delivering care; and guide insurers managing claims to facilitate better outcomes for people with WAD. A summary of the guideline recommendations is also available on this page.

    What’s changed?

    These Guidelines update the Guidelines for the management of acute whiplash-associated disorders for health professionals, third edition 2014. Key changes include:

    • Updated recommendations for acute whiplash
    • New section on chronic whiplash with respect to treatment, prognosis and assessment
    • Risk stratification protocols and tools for people with acute whiplash
    • Guideline development in accordance with the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) standards for clinical practice guidelines; and use of the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to rate the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations
    • National, rather than NSW-based guidelines

    The draft Guidelines have been developed in partnership with the John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research (JWCRR), with input and advice from subject matter experts and representatives from clinical health professions, insurers, other state and territory motor accident regulatory bodies and people with lived experience of whiplash injury.

    Submissions

    Feedback and submissions on the draft Guidelines should be submitted using the online form below, or via email.

    The closing date for submissions is 5:00pm, Wednesday 5 July 2023.

    In your feedback, you may wish to consider the following questions when reviewing the recommended care pathways:

    • Is the recommended care pathway feasible to implement?
    • Is the recommended care pathway acceptable to key stakeholders?
    • What would be the impact on health equity?
    • What would help you apply these recommendations in practice?

    Please email any enquiries about the consultation process.

    SIRA may publish de-identified submissions on its website unless accompanied by a request for confidentiality.

    Next steps

    Following this consultation, SIRA will seek approval of the final Guidelines from the NHMRC in November 2023.

    Guideline recommendations approved by NHMRC are recognised in Australia and internationally as representing current medical knowledge and best-practice in health care. SIRA expects to publish the final Guidelines in early 2024.

  • Milestones

    • The consultation period commences 9am on 5 June 2023 and ends 5pm on 5 July 2023.

  • Outcomes

    SIRA received 36 submissions of which 22 were confidential. The remaining 14 submissions have been made publicly available with private information redacted where necessary.

    A consultation submissions summary is available and provides an overview of feedback together with key guideline changes.

    Submissions

    The following submissions were lodged and agreement to publish received.

    View the submissions here

Documents

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