The number of questions to include

From experience, a maximum of around 60-70 indicative questions is suggested, but depending on the nature of the stakeholder group being consulted, a Steering Group may decide that fewer, or even slightly more, will work.

If the long list of indicative questions is deemed too long, and there is no scope for reducing the list by merging questions, the JLA Adviser can help the Steering Group decide on how to reduce it in a fair and transparent way. It is still important that any questions removed in order for the list to be reduced are published and are not ‘lost’.

Some examples of criteria considered by Steering Groups to help reduce a list of indicative questions to a more manageable size for interim prioritisation include:

• Whether the question has been suggested by both patients and clinicians
• Whether the question has been suggested by a minimum number of people
• Whether the question has been suggested by different kinds of professionals
• Whether the question has been commonly expressed in other fora, such as patient helpline services
• Whether the question overlaps with one suggested by research recommendations.