Footnotes

• Contributors JKA, AP, CH and KRM conceived the work. JKA and AP wrote the manuscript. CH and KRM reviewed and edited the manuscript.

• Funding AP, KRM and CH are coinvestigators of The Evidence Synthesis Working Group, which is funded by the National Institute for Health Research School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR) (Project Number 390).

• Competing interests AP reports grants from NIHR, grants from NIHR School of Primary Care Research, during the conduct of the study and occasionally receives expenses for teaching Evidence-Based Medicine. CH reports that he has received expenses and fees for media work, expenses from the WHO and holds grant funding from the NIHR, the NIHR School of Primary Care Research, The Wellcome Trust and the WHO. He has received financial remuneration from an asbestos case. He has also received income from the publication of a series of toolkit books published by Blackwells. On occasion, he receives expenses for teaching EBM and is also paid for his GP work in NHS out of hours and as editor in Chief of the BMJ EBM Journal. CEBM jointly runs the EvidenceLive Conference with the BMJ and the Overdiagnosis Conference with some international partners; these conferences are run on a non-profit making model. KM receives funding from the NHS NIHR including the Health Technology Assessment programme as Primary Care panel Chair. He is also Director of an MSc in Systematic Reviews. JKA is a member of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine.

• Patient consent Not required.

• Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.