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Service user experience of social care, the care and support of older people with learning disabilities, and helping people regain independence are among the latest topics referred to NICE for its social care work programme.

Last year the Department of Health ran a consultation to identify social care topics suitable for developing into NICE guidelines and quality standards.

The department received more than 270 responses from a range of sources including local authorities, charities, regional clinical commissioning groups and individual services.

As a result of the consultation, the following 5 social care topics have now been referred to NICE:

• Care and support of older people with learning disabilities
• Regaining independence (reablement): short term interventions to help people to regain independence
• Service user and carer experience: service users and carer experience of social care
• Medicines management: managing the use of medicines in community settings for people receiving socia care
• Falls: regaining independence in older people who experience a fall.

Consultees were asked to consider areas where guidelines and quality standards would be beneficial to the topic, and whether existing evidence-based guidance could be used to develop quality standards.

The topics referred form part of NICE's new role to develop guidance and quality standards for social care in England.

This responsibility, taken on in April 2013, provides NICE with an opportunity to apply an evidence-based system to decision-making in the social care sector, similar to that provided for the NHS.

It will also allow NICE to help improve the integration between health, public health and social care.

Professor Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Health and Social Care at NICE, said: "We welcome this latest set of new topics put forward by the Department of Health for social care quality standards and guidelines.

"The forthcoming guidelines and quality standards will be developed together with social care experts, collaborating centres and partner organisations, and will help improve integration across health, public health and social care services."