The NICE Guidelines Technical Support Unit (TSU) is based within the Centre for Advanced Research Synthesis and Decision Science in the Department of Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School. It began in 2011 and is funded by the NICE Centre for Guidelines.

The purpose of the TSU is three-fold:

· To provide rapid response service to NICE and to the National Collaborating Centres on issues relating to evidence synthesis and economic modelling in guidelines,

· To provide training in evidence synthesis and economic modelling for NICE and the National Collaborating Centres,

· To carry out research relevant to evidence synthesis and economic modelling in guidelines.

The TSU consists of core staff from the Multiparameter Evidence Synthesis research group, and a network of internal and external collaborators: including Bristol Evidence Synthesis Appraisal and Modelling (BEAM) Centre, University of Bristol; Centre for Health Economics, University of York (Professor Mark Sculpher); Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield (Dr Sarah Davies, Professor Allan Wailoo) and the Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick (Professor Keith Abrams).

In Bristol, the TSU is staffed by Professor Nicky Welton (Co-Director, Methodology and Training Lead), Dr Hugo Pedder (Co-Director, Rapid Response Lead), Dr Beatrice Downing (Scientific Coordinator and Statistician), Dr. Deborah Caldwell (Public Health Support), Dr Howard Thom (Health Economics Support) and Professor Julian Higgins (Strategic Support).