This case study describes the process the team in Newcastle working on the Health Foundation’s MAGIC programme went through to develop ‘Brief Decision Aids’ as a tool that patients and clinicians can use to support people to play a more active role in decisions about their treatment and care.

It describes how the ‘brief decision aid’ format was originally developed as a teaching aid to support training for clinicians in shared decision making, but the popularity and usefulness of the approach led to its development as a tool for clinical practice.

The team set some clear criteria to guide the development of each brief decision aid, including its usability within a consultation and independently by the patient, ease of access on-line and in print, and based on high quality evidence.

The team drew on international evidence and feedback from patients and health professionals to explore questions such as the best terminology to use (e.g. pros and cons, or risks and benefits, the best way to present the information, and how brief the information should be.

The case study goes on to describe how the initial Brief decision Aids were evaluated and the findings and the next phase of development.