The Uganda Clinical Guidelines (UCG) evolved from the National Standard Treatment Guidelines 1993, which were the first of the type published in Uganda. Before then, individual guidelines existed to manage a limited number of specific conditions.

The purpose of national standard treatment guidelines is to provide evidence-based, practical and implementable guidance to prescribers to provide the most cost-effective and affordable treatment of priority health conditions in a country. Together with the Practical Guidelines for Dispensing at Lower/Higher Health Facility Level, which provide information about medicine characteristics, administration, and side effects, the UCG is designed as a practical tool to support daily clinical practice by providing a reliable reference for health workers on appropriate management of Uganda’s common health conditions. It also gives health managers a reference tool to assess and measure service quality.

The guidelines are also the basis for the formulation of the essential medicines and health supplies list of Uganda (EMHSLU), which is used to guide supply and procurement. This allows for more efficient use of limited resources to improve rational prescribing.

The treatments described in the UCG are the nationally recognised standard treatments, and in many cases, they are derived from those recommended in the Ministry of Health Vertical Programmes, World Health Organisation, and other international guidelines. The guidelines have been reviewed and updated through a three-month process involving extensive consultations with public health programs
staff, medical experts and health workers of all cadres and various health
development partners.

Uganda Clinical Guidelines 2023
As medicine is an ever-evolving field, this manual is to be used for guidance, but cannot replace clinical judgement in individual cases. The Ministry of Health and all those involved in updating the UCG sincerely hope that the manual will make a significant contribution to ongoing improvements in national therapeutic services and medicines utilisation.

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