"What are the best things about BASHH (British Association for Sexual Health and HIV)?" was a question posed in the strategy consultation held in August 2011. Patient care and clinical governance was seen as an ‘extremely high’ priority for BASHH by almost everyone responding, and the ‘best thing’ chosen by 96% of the 258 members participating were the clinical guidelines (J Wilson, personal communication). These were given as the main reasons for using the BASHH website by 98% of those responding, and were said to be ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ relevant to their clinical practice. The usage figures for the website substantiate this, with the guidelines receiving nearly 100 000 hits each year,1 a dramatic growth since the first national guideline (gonorrhoea) was published in 1996. At that time, the Clinical Effectiveness Unit of the Royal College of Physicians, was beginning to apply structured methods of guideline evaluation, notably...]]>