Member Work Programme
The Network’s member work programme comprises of a wide range of benchmarking projects on topics covering but not limited to: Pharmacy, Outpatients, Virtual Wards, Children and Young People’s and Adult & Older People’s Mental Health. Members can look forward to engaging projects, interactive events and insightful data aimed at addressing key challenges and delivering opportunities across all sectors of the NHS. The member work programme is approved by the Network Steering Group following extensive consultations with the sector based Reference Groups and with members on the topics to be included in the programme.
Our sectors are split into:
Every member project produces: a benchmarking findings event, benchmarking project report, an online toolkit and a range of outputs including case studies.
Insight members receive engagement sessions, improvement opportunity reports, dedicated Network support and support packages which cover data quality, data interpretation and utilisation of data.
Acute Sector
The NHS Benchmarking Network reports relating to acute services are focused on a select number of vital projects. These projects have been nominated by members and are based on national policy and key areas of interest.
The acute projects provide information that is unique to NHS Benchmarking Network members and are highly valued by members as they provide insight that is unavailable from national data sources alone.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
The Acute Pharmacy & Medicines Optimisation project is entering the tenth iteration, originally introduced in 2014. The project provides widespread analysis of several key topics including medicines spend, pharmacy workforce, aseptic services and medicines safety.
The aim of the Acute Pharmacy & Medicines Optimisation project is to provide key insight for NHS organisations who provide acute hospital services to draw robust conclusions about NHS Pharmacy provision.
The project comprises of several key topics, and includes questions on virtual wards, medicines spend, pharmacy workforce, digital innovation. The Pharmacy project also explores metrics on a range of pharmacy services, including but not limited to: clinical pharmacy, aseptics, diabetes and antimicrobials.
Key metrics covered:
Total medicines costs per 100 beds (£)
Cost of medical gases per 100 beds (£)
Total pharmacy workforce (WTE) in establishment per 100 beds
Total pharmacy vacancy rate (%)
Percentage of pay spend on bank staff (%)
Average discharge prescription turnaround time – weekday (minutes)
Percentage of pharmacist time spent on clinical activities (%)
Proportion of homecare medications prescribed digitally (%)
Percentage of injectable chemotherapy sourced and supplied as pre-assembled/ready-made versus local production (%)
Participating in the Pharmacy project enables members to gain valuable insight on the variation in provision of pharmacy services across providers in the UK. Outputs of the project highlight participants within the data set and suggest areas of potential opportunity in service developments as well as areas of high performance to share with others. Data becomes more robust with higher levels of participation in the project and provides more value to the range of outputs that are made available (member report, online toolkit, events etc).
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
The Emergency Care project has been running annually since 2012. The project benchmarks data submitted by NHS acute care provider members, regarding urgent and emergency care services.
The aim of the Emergency Care project is to enable insight to be gathered and disseminated.
The project collects data on type one and two emergency departments, type three and four units (such as minor injuries units and urgent treatment centres), acute medical units (AMU’s) and same day emergency care services (SDEC).
Key metrics covered:
Total ED attendances
Total number of treatment spaces per 100k ED attendances
Total ED medical workforce per 100k ED attendances
Total ED nursing workforce per 100k ED attendances
Percentage of total pay spent on bank & agency staff
Percentage of patients who waited more than 12 hours in ED
Average ambulance handover time
Percentage of ED attendances that arrived with a booked slot
Percentage of ED attendances that were admitted
Project outputs allow participants to view and analyse the benchmarked dataset. The insight will be benchmarked to enable members to identify areas of high performance and improvement opportunities. Members will also be able to track progress towards implementation of national policy, reduction in unnecessary variation and improved outcomes and experiences for patients.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
The Managing Frailty in the Acute Setting (Managing Frailty) project has been delivered annually since 2014. The project benchmarks data submitted by NHS acute care providers, about the care of frail older patients in hospital. The project also includes a distinct service user audit, which allows participants to submit anonymised patient level data relating to discharges from care of older people wards.
The aim of the Managing Frailty project is to provide insight into the services for the care of frail older patients within acute hospitals. The project aims to "follow" the pathway of older patients through the acute setting.
Key topic areas that participants are asked to provide data on include (but are not limited to):
Frailty screening and comprehensive geriatric assessment
Acute frailty services
Frailty units
Care of older people wards
Admitting and discharging elderly patients
Key metrics covered:
Percentage of consultants who are geriatricians
Number of designated 'care of older people' beds per medical bed
Total care of older people wards staffing (per 100 care of older people beds)
Percentage of patients over 65 , who received clinical frailty screening within 30 minutes of arrival at hospital
Number of patients seen by the AFS
Percentage of total non-elective admissions patients aged 65+
Percentage of all occupied bed days utilised by service users who met the criteria to be discharged (patients aged 65+)
Percentage of emergency admissions discharged on the same day (patients aged 65+)
Participants are able to assess how their services for the care of frail older patients in hospital relate to those of other participants, being able to assess their performance against key performance indicators and network with other participants. The service user audit element of the project allows participants to submit anonymised patient level data on discharges from care of older people wards. These findings can be used to contextualise and support the core project findings and track patient outcomes.
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Current project status: Data collection closed for 2024/25. Reporting in November 2024.
The Outpatients project is now entering its 8th iteration at the NHS Benchmarking Network. The project provides benchmarked analytics, submitted by our acute provider members, on 11 different outpatient specialities.
The aim of the Outpatients project is to provide valuable knowledge and insight on outpatient services across the UK, at organisation and speciality level.
The project currently collects data for the following 11 specialities:
Ophthalmology
Trauma and orthopaedics
Cardiology
Dermatology
Gynaecology
Urology
Ear, nose and throat
General surgery
Respiratory medicine
Clinical haematology
Paediatrics
Key metrics covered:
Organisational level
Follow up to first attendance ratio (remote and face-to-face)
Percentage of scheduled clinics delivered (%)
Percentage of delivered clinics that were consultant led (%)
Speciality level
Did not attend rate for first and follow-up appointments (%)
Median wait in calendar days for first outpatient attendance
Number of Advice and Guidance requests received per 100 new outpatient appointments
Number of patients on a PIFU pathway per 10,000 outpatient attendances
Participation in the Outpatient project enables benchmarking at speciality and organisational level to identify high performance areas and opportunities for service improvement.
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The NHSBN National Cost Collection Analysis is a member level report that examines the NHS National Cost Collections data (https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/). The National Cost Collection is a nationally mandated collection of cost data from secondary care and tertiary care providers delivering services in the NHS. The data set is published annually by NHS England and covers the majority of NHS expenditure in England.
The aim of the NHSBN analysis is to make the dataset more accessible and enable the reader to quickly understand what the data says about their organisation’s overall financial management. The analysis highlights the activities which appear to show the greatest potential for savings.
This report is currently produced for NHSBN members from England who provide acute services. This is due to the source data being currently unavailable for other member types. In the future it is likely that NHSBN will expand versions of the analysis to cover all members.
NHSBN is looking to work with members to examine how more can be done with this rich dataset. This could be by providing further analysis for Acute provision, or reviewing how this data may support insight at regional and ICS levels. Please feel free to contact the Support Team to discuss further.
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The Improvement Opportunity Reports have been developed to provide a strategic overview of organisation performance across all the NHSBN provider projects, specifically focusing on improvement opportunities. The comprehensive report includes a short summary of each NHSBN project's key findings, followed by a selection of metrics which have been identified as potential improvement opportunities.
Community Sector
Community health services cover a wide range of services and provide care for people from birth to the end of their life. Community health teams play a vital role in supporting people with complex health and care needs to live independently in their own home for as long as possible. Services are mainly delivered in people’s homes (this includes care homes) but also in community hospitals, intermediate care facilities, clinics and schools. This sector may be of interest to organisations involved in district nursing, intermediate care, community therapies and community nursing.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
New for the 2024 work-programme, the Children’s Community Therapies project will benchmark four key community therapy services (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and dietetics). Previously benchmarked in the Community Services and Acute and Community Therapies projects, the project will continue to explore the service model, access, activity, workforce and outcomes of children’s community therapy services. Children’s community therapy provision is crucial in enabling children to lead healthy lives at home.
The projects aims to provide insight into how a provider’s children’s community therapy service compares to their peers, enabling providers to identify areas for service improvement and consequently improving the outcomes for children in their care.
The project covers the following services:
Physiotherapy
Occupational therapy
Speech and language therapy
Dietetics
Key metrics covered:
Mean waiting time from referral to first appointment
Total number contacts
Average length of a contact
Was not brought rates
Total AHPs in post per 1,000 contacts
AHP vacancy rate
The new Children’s Community Therapies project offers members a dedicated deep dive into children’s community therapy services. Members will be able to compare their model of care, their activity and their workforce to their peers, identifying areas for potential service improvement that could increase efficiency and improve patient outcomes.
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Current project status: monthly collection.
The project includes over 40 metrics, collected monthly, covering patient safety and quality, access, productivity, workforce, and finance, to track ongoing changes in the delivery of community services, community hospitals and intermediate care. Outputs include a monthly benchmarking toolkit, PDF report with hi highlighted member position across all metrics and a dashboard.
The project aims to provide monthly data to allow providers to compare to others across the country and understand their month-to-month trends using the time series charts.
The project covers the following services:
Community services
District nursing
Intermediate care
Virtual wards
Therapy services
Community hospitals
Key metrics covered:
Total number of referrals to all adult community services per 100,000 population
Total number of referrals to all children community services per 100,000 population
Did Not Attends (DNA) rate – adult/children services
Total number of virtual wards beds per 100,000 population
Total number of unique service users accessing community services during the month
Percentage occupancy of community hospital beds
Participation in this project offers a range of advantages. Participants benefit from receiving timely reports, with an average turnaround of just 8 days from the submission of data. These reports along with the other outputs serve as valuable tools, providing insights that can inform Boards about organisational performance. Additionally, participants gain access to benchmarks that can be cascaded to service level, ward managers, service leads, etc. The results obtained can be integrated into the internal performance management systems of member organisation.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
District nursing has been benchmarked by the Network for over 20 years as part of the Community Services Project. In 2023, district nursing was benchmarked for the first time as a standalone project. This project is a focused deep dive into district nursing services, looking at service models, demand, capacity, workforce, finance, and outcomes.
The project aims to provide insight into how district nursing services across the UK benchmark with each other. This will enable participants to identify areas of high performance as well as opportunities for improvement
Key metrics covered:
Total contacts (face-to-face vs non-face-to-face) per 100,000 population
Caseload per clinical WTE (establishment)
Clinical staff vacancy rate
Caseload ethnicity
Total nursing staff per 100,000 weighted population
Referrals by source
Participating in our District Nursing project will allow members to gain insight into how their service compares to others across the UK and will provide members with an opportunity to network and gain insight from other providers. Participating members will receive:
An interactive online toolkit, allowing them to benchmark their service across hundreds of metrics.
A bespoke dashboard report outlining key metrics and highlighting their reported positions.
Free attendance at a national online findings event summarising the project findings.
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Current project status: Data collection closed for 2024/25. Reporting in November 2024.
The project is entering its second year as a stand-alone project. The project collects data from community providers and provides benchmarked analytics for the health visiting, school nursing and 0-19 services. This year, children’s community nursing services are also being included in the project.
The project aims to provide members with information and insight regarding the operation of their services related to the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme. Data presented within the projects aims to highlight areas of high performance and show opportunities for improvement.
The project covers the following services:
Health visiting
School nursing
0-19 services
Children’s community nursing
Key metrics covered:
Universal caseload per clinical WTE in establishment
Face-to-face vs. non face-to-face contacts (% split)
Average length of a face-to-face contact in minutes
Percentage of each health and wellbeing review carried out by a registered health visitor (%)
Health visitor/School nurse vacancy rate by band (%)
Participating in our Healthy Child Programme and Children’s Community Nursing project will allow members to visualise their position against peers to compare how services are being run across the UK. This will provide members with an opportunity to connect with others and promote learning from other providers of children’s community services.
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Current project status: Data collection closed for 2024/25. Reporting from November 2024.
The NHS Benchmarking Network’s Intermediate Care project has been running as part of the core work programme since 2020. The project was designed following the success of the National Audit of Intermediate Care which was hosted by the Network from 2013-2018. The project allows services to benchmark against other, similar services to assess different areas such as workforce, activity, and service model. Key elements of our Intermediate Care project are the clinical case review (previously known as service user audit) and the patient reported experience measure (PREM) survey which provides feedback on patient experience and outcomes to get a different perspective of the services.
The Intermediate Care project aims to provide members with an insight into their services. Members have a choice to submit data at a local level as well as organisational level. The offers the opportunity to benchmark both internally as well as at a national level.
Previously the project has collected data for Urgent Community Response, Home based, Bed based, Reablement, and Integrated MDT services.
The 2024/25 iteration of the project has been rescoped to include three service; UCR, Bed based and Services Provided at Home. Service provided at home includes home based, reablement and IMDT. Allowing the services to be viewed at both a consolidated view and also a more granular level.
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The Improvement Opportunity Reports have been developed to provide a strategic overview of organisation performance across all the NHSBN provider projects, specifically focusing on improvement opportunities. The comprehensive report includes a short summary of each NHSBN project's key findings, followed by a selection of metrics which have been identified as potential improvement opportunities.
Acute and Community Sector
The NHS Benchmarking Network delivers projects which relate to services that could be delivered by either an acute or community sector organisation. These projects have been nominated by members and are based on national policy and key areas of interest.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
The Adult Therapies project benchmarks six dedicated therapy services (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, dietetics, podiatry and musculoskeletal). The project focuses on key areas of interest for therapy services, such as activity and workforce metrics and brings together acute and community therapy provision by collecting data for inpatient, outpatient and community services.
The aim of the project is to enable therapy services to benchmark their operation against services both within their own setting but also across acute and community services.
The project covers the following services:
Physiotherapy
Occupational Therapy
Speech and Language Therapy
Dietetics
Podiatry
Musculoskeletal
Key metrics covered:
Mean waiting time from referral to first appointment
Total number contacts per clinical WTE
Average length of a contact
Total AHPs in post per 1,000 contacts
AHP vacancy rate
Participation in the Adult Therapies project will enable members to assess staffing levels, banding mix and vacancy levels of their workforce. Providers can benchmark the activity of their service against their peers, to identify areas for investigation and improvement that can help improve patient outcomes.
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Current project status: 2024/25 outputs released.
2024 marks the first ever iteration of the Virtual Wards (also known as Hospital at Home) project which has been designed in direct response to feedback from members who expressed a keen interest in patient experience.
The project’s purpose is to allow members to gain insight into how virtual wards are currently operating across the UK and to provide a platform for shared learning to facilitate service improvements, supported by data which has gone beyond traditional metrics.
This project has been designed to be inclusive of all service models meaning any organisation operating a virtual ward or hospital at home service can participate, regardless of the conditions they are treating.
The project incorporates staff surveys, patient reported experience measures, and friends/family questionnaires to allow member organisations to gain valuable feedback from these three crucial perspectives. This, alongside a clinical case review and more traditional activity/workforce metrics will give a comprehensive snapshot of the current landscape.
Like all our projects, the Virtual Wards (also known as Hospital at Home) project provides an opportunity to effect meaningful system enhancements. By collecting less numerical data and shifting the focus onto patient care and experience, the project gives members the chance to collaborate with other like-minded services, with the emphasis on facilitating shared learning opportunities. Our 360-feedback loop will use quantitative and qualitative data to offer unique insight into member organisations services.
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The NHSBN National Cost Collection Analysis is a member level report that examines the NHS National Cost Collections data (https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/). The National Cost Collection is a nationally mandated collection of cost data from secondary care and tertiary care providers delivering services in the NHS. The data set is published annually by NHS England and covers the majority of NHS expenditure in England.
The aim of the NHSBN analysis is to make the dataset more accessible and enable the reader to quickly understand what the data says about their organisation’s overall financial management. The analysis highlights the activities which appear to show the greatest potential for savings.
This report is currently produced for NHSBN members from England who provide acute services. This is due to the source data being currently unavailable for other member types. In the future it is likely that NHSBN will expand versions of the analysis to cover all members.
NHSBN is looking to work with members to examine how more can be done with this rich dataset. This could be by providing further analysis for Acute provision, or reviewing how this data may support insight at regional and ICS levels. Please feel free to contact the Support Team to discuss further.
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The Improvement Opportunity Reports have been developed to provide a strategic overview of organisation performance across all the NHSBN provider projects, specifically focusing on improvement opportunities. The comprehensive report includes a short summary of each NHSBN project's key findings, followed by a selection of metrics which have been identified as potential improvement opportunities.
Mental Health, Learning Disabilities & Autism Services (MHLDA) Sector
With one in four adults and one in 10 children experiencing mental illness, projects in this sector will help organisations benchmark services and inform strategic change within their organisation. This sector may be of interest to organisations involved in adult, children and young people’s mental health, learning disabilities and autism.
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Current project status: 2024/25 reports released.
The NHS Benchmarking Network’s Adult’s and Older People’s Mental Health project has been running annually since 2012. The project benchmarks data submitted by providers of NHS adult mental health services, who are also members of the NHS Benchmarking Network.
The project aims to provide insight into how a provider’s adult and older people’s mental health services compare to their peers, enabling members to identify areas for service and outcomes improvement for people in their care.
The project covers the following services:
Community mental health services
Inpatient mental health services
Key metrics covered:
Service user demographics; ethnicity and gender
Caseload by service benchmarked per population
Contacts by service benchmarked per population
Waiting times
Number of admissions by bed type and benchmarked where appropriate
Admissions under the Mental Health Act
Lengths of stay by bed type and for patients admitted under the Mental Health Act
Patient Safety Indicators on violence and restraint
Use of outcome measures
Workforce and finance metrics
Crisis and liaison referrals, assessments and responses benchmarked per population
Participating in our Adults and Older People’s Mental Health project will allow members to gain insight into how their services compare to others across the UK and will provide members with an opportunity to network and gain insight from other providers. Participating members will receive:
An interactive online toolkit, allowing them to benchmark their service across thousands of metrics.
A bespoke report outlining key metrics and highlighting their reported positions compared to their geographical region and the rest of the UK.
A findings event to discuss key messages and themes from the data collection along with presentations from key policy makers within the sector and shared learning from member colleagues.
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Current project status: Data collection closed for 2024/25. Reporting in November 2024.
The NHS Benchmarking Network’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health project has been running annually since 2012. The project benchmarks data submitted by providers of NHS CYP mental health services, who are also members of the NHS Benchmarking Network.
The project aims to provide insight into how a provider’s children and young people’s mental health services compare to their peers, enabling members to identify areas for service improvement and consequently improving the outcomes for people in their care.
The project covers the following services:
Community mental health services
Inpatient mental health services
Key metrics covered:
Service user demographics; ethnicity and gender
Caseload by service benchmarked per population
Contacts by service benchmarked per population
Waiting times
Number of admissions by bed type and benchmarked where appropriate
Admissions under the Mental Health Act
Lengths of stay by bed type
Patient Safety Indicators on violence and restraint
Use of outcome measures
Workforce and finance metrics
Participating in our Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health project will allow members to gain insight into how their services compare to others across the UK and will provide members with an opportunity to network and gain insight from other providers. Participating members will receive:
An interactive online toolkit, allowing them to benchmark their service across thousands of metrics.
A bespoke report outlining key metrics and highlighting their reported positions compared to their geographical region and the rest of the UK.
A findings event to discuss key messages and themes from the data collection along with presentations from key policy makers within the sector and shared learning from member colleagues
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Current project status: Data collection closed for 2024/25. Reporting in February 2025.
The NHS Benchmarking Network’s Learning Disabilities project has been running annually since 2015. The project benchmarks data for all specialist providers of learning disability and autism services.
The project aims to provide insight into how a provider’s learning disability and autism service benchmarks to their peers, enabling providers to identify areas for service and outcomes improvement for people in their care.
The project covers the following services:
Corporate governance and performance on national programmes
Community services
Adult and child inpatient services
Adult and child community autism services
Key metrics covered:
Service user demographics; ethnicity and gender
Caseload by service benchmarked per population
Contacts by service benchmarked per population
Lengths of stay by bed type
Workforce and finance metrics
Participating in our Learning Disabilities project will allow members to gain insight into how their services compare to others across the UK and will provide members with an opportunity to network and gain insight from other providers. Participating members will receive:
An interactive online toolkit, allowing them to benchmark their service across thousands of metrics.
A bespoke report outlining key metrics and highlighting their reported positions compared to their geographical region and the rest of the UK.
A findings event to discuss key messages and themes from the data collection along with presentations from key policy makers within the sector and shared learning from member colleagues.
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Current project status: quarterly collection of monthly data.
The NHS Benchmarking MHLDA Indicators project has been running since 2020. The project benchmarks data on services covering adults and older people, children and young people, talking therapies and learning disabilities and autism.
The project aims to provide monthly data, on a quarterly basis to allow providers to compare to others across the country and understand their month-to-month trends using the time series charts.
The project covers the following metrics:
Community mental health services
Inpatient mental health services
Key metrics covered:
Referrals
Caseloads benchmarked per population
Contacts by service benchmarked per population
Number of admissions by bed type and benchmarked where appropriate
Admissions under the Mental Health Act
Patient Safety Indicators on violence and restraint
Workforce and finance metrics
Participation in this project benefit from receiving timely reports, with an average turnaround of 14 days from the quarter end. These reports along with the other outputs serve as valuable tools, providing insights that can inform Boards about organisational performance.
An interactive online toolkit, allowing members to benchmark their service across hundreds of metrics.
A bespoke report outlining key metrics and highlighting members reported positions compared to the rest of the UK.
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The Improvement Opportunity Reports have been developed to provide a strategic overview of organisation performance across all the NHSBN provider projects, specifically focusing on improvement opportunities. The comprehensive report includes a short summary of each NHSBN project's key findings, followed by a selection of metrics which have been identified as potential improvement opportunities.
ICS Sector
The ICS Sector has emerged from the Commissioning Sector in which most of the membership comprised of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and NHSE. NHSE and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have continued to support the NHS Benchmarking Network and whilst not submitting data at this time, are a vital part of the delivery of health and social care services in England and gain value from benchmarking NHSBN projects.
Membership is focused on collaboration and working across systems for improvements in population health, outcomes, and quality improvement as well as support for cost improvement and improved productivity. NHSE, ICBs and other Systems partners are members of the NHSBN community and can access provider projects reports via data sharing arrangements.
Access to the National Indicators dataset enables reduced demand on informatics and BI teams of our members, minimising the time it takes to access national data and use within Board dashboards and reports.
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The National Indicators dataset (formerly known as the Integrated Care Benchmarker) is curated in collaboration with members and other stakeholders and draws from a range of publicly available data sources. The aim of the dataset is to support healthcare leaders in developing strategic planning and deliver the goals of the NHS Long Term Plan.
Data is presented in the tool at ICB level via charts, maps and time series analysis and has the facility to drill down to sub-ICB and Local Authority level data.
The dataset is regularly updated to incorporate latest available data and new functionality.
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The ICS Project Reports include ICS extracts of key project metrics across multiple project areas, delivered in one comprehensive report. The aim of these reports is to support systems in collaboratively addressing key challenges and opportunities.
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The NHSBN National Cost Collection Analysis is a member level report that examines the NHS National Cost Collections data (https://www.england.nhs.uk/costing-in-the-nhs/). The National Cost Collection is a nationally mandated collection of cost data from secondary care and tertiary care providers delivering services in the NHS. The data set is published annually by NHS England and covers the majority of NHS expenditure in England.
The aim of the NHSBN analysis is to make the dataset more accessible and enable the reader to quickly understand what the data says about their organisation’s overall financial management. The analysis highlights the activities which appear to show the greatest potential for savings.
This report is currently produced for NHSBN members from England who provide acute services. This is due to the source data being currently unavailable for other member types. In the future it is likely that NHSBN will expand versions of the analysis to cover all members.
NHSBN is looking to work with members to examine how more can be done with this rich dataset. This could be by providing further analysis for Acute provision, or reviewing how this data may support insight at regional and ICS levels. Please feel free to contact the Support Team to discuss further.
-
The Improvement Opportunity Reports have been developed to provide a strategic overview of organisation performance across all the NHSBN provider projects, specifically focusing on improvement opportunities. The comprehensive report includes a short summary of each NHSBN project's key findings, followed by a selection of metrics which have been identified as potential improvement opportunities.