NHSBN 2024/25 Vision, Values and Objectives

Vision, values, and objectives are important components in any organisation’s strategic framework. Alongside the NHS Benchmarking Network’s (NHSBN or the Network) Constitution and Terms of Membership, they support a governance structure for the effective and efficient operation of the Network and ensure we remain member led.

We would like to remind you of our vision and values, whilst also sharing the Network’s updated objectives for 2024/25.

Vision and Values

The Networks vision and values lay the core foundations for how the Network is run and governed. This year, the vision and values remain the same as 2023/24.The Networks values are:

• Excellence – Always striving to be the best we can be, in everything we do

• Respect – Value everyone, acknowledge members’ unique experiences, work together to deliver improvement

• Integrity – Be transparent, be realistic, be honest

The Networks vision is to enable members to improve patient outcomes, raise health standards and deliver quality health and care services through data excellence, benchmarking and the sharing of innovation.

Objectives for 2024/25

Our work is guided by a set of objectives agreed annually by the Steering Group on behalf of the Network. As with previous years’ objectives, our core focus is on putting our members at the heart of the Network - allowing us to work together, enable curiosity and find the answer to the 'so what' questions. The objectives for 2024/25 are:

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What’s next?

Building on our updated objectives, if you’re interested in joining our member led community or renewing membership for the 2024/25– now is the time to do so!

Over the coming weeks, our member work programme projects will be opening for registration and data collection. To find out more you can either view our member work programme calendar or get in contact with the membership team here.

With thanks to all our members for their continued support, we look forward to working with you all through the coming year.

Health and Care Workforce Programme 2024 Launches!

The NHS Benchmarking Network have been working with NHS England over the last five years to develop a Workforce Programme to provide data and insight to support the growth and retention of the workforce across health and social care. 

Together we have worked hard to build a profile of where services are delivered, to understand the shape and size of the workforce across all sectors. We continue to build on the progress made to date, to support the achievement of the targets and ambitions recently set out in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan

We are pleased to announce the Workforce Projects that will be included in 2024 along with  launch dates, submission deadlines and report publication timelines.  Details can be found here

Details of the specific projects will be released over the coming weeks and months.

We will continue to review and reduce the data burden wherever possible whilst still delivering against key project requirements.

At the same time as launching the 2024 Health and Care Workforce Programme we are pleased to launch the programme dedicated website.  The content will grow over the coming months as 2024 projects come online and we add project specifications and links to support from the team.

Each project page includes:

• Options to register an interest in participating in a project, links to contact the team and FAQs

• A brief project overview although more details are included within the census collection templates

• Links to walkthrough live session and videos as well as links to drop In sessions throughout the data collection period providing an opportunity to raise queries with the team

• Collection templates – locked for use for submission and unlocked for use locally.

• National report from 2023.

We will also include details of events for 2024 and news items related to the programme.

Full dates for the 2024/25 Member Work Programme are now available!

The start of the NHS Benchmarking Network’s 2024/25 member work programme is right around the corner, with 3 projects opening for registration next month! Following the release of our work programme in January, we’re delighted to provide further information for you. This additional information includes dates throughout the year for all projects, covering:

• Registration

• Data collection

• Validation

• Reporting

• Events

On our member work programme calendar, each project will now show the exact dates for each project stage, allowing members to plan and coordinate their project participation. Furthermore, the event dates will also allow you to save the date in your diary to ensure you don’t miss our highly popular Benchmarking Findings webinars! Registration for these events will open later in the year and members will be contacted when appropriate.

To ensure uninterrupted access to the member work programme, please ensure your organisation has provided a purchase order for the upcoming membership renewal. Contact Kim Burton, Network Development Manager, if you have any queries.

To download your copy of the work programme with full dates, please click here. You can find out further details about each of the 24/25 projects on the projects webpage. If you have any questions, please contact the team at enquiries@nhsbenchmarking.nhs.net

Not yet a member?

If you are from a non-member organisation, now is a great time to join to engage with the 2024/25 member work programme. We invite you to have a conversation about how the Network community can support you in achieving your priorities. Please get in touch with the Support Team to arrange this.

Coming soon – CVDPREVENT outcomes indicators

The CVDPREVENT team are pleased to announce that 10 new experimental indicators are to be introduced to the audit on 26th February 2024. The ‘Outcomes Indicators’ are a completely new type of indicator that have been calculated using a linked dataset as part of a collaborative project between NHS England (NHSE), the National Cardiovascular Intelligence Network in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (NCVIN-OHID) and the NHS Benchmarking Network (NHSBN).

The CVDPREVENT audit provides data for users to understand how many people with CVD or its high-risk conditions are being identified, diagnosed and treated in primary care. However, it was recognised that data was not yet available to explicitly monitor the impact that CVD might be having on these patients. In order to measure this, a new dataset was created that links CVDPREVENT primary care data to mortality (ONS) and admissions (HES) data.

An example:

CVDPREVENT audit data finds patients aged 18 – 79 that are diagnosed with hypertension, recorded as such on 31st December 2022. With the new linked dataset, the team are then able to monitor whether these patients died from CVD within the following year of this recorded diagnosis (i.e. at any point between 1st January 2023 to 31st December 2023). Therefore, the audit is able to calculate the CVD mortality rate (in 2023) among the population aged 18 – 79 with GP recorded hypertension (as recorded on 31st December 2022). This is one of the CVDPREVENT experimental outcomes indicators.

The indicators

There are currently 10 outcomes indicators:

Caveats and intepretation

There are several caveats that should be considered when interpreting these new experimental indicators. These indicators are measures of risk among the population who have certain diagnoses in their GP records, so do not include outcomes in the population (e.g. heart attack) before they are known to a GP. The indicators also do not take into consideration the time lived with certain diagnosis.

For these reasons, indicators are experimental, and care should be taken with interpretation. Indicators are age-standardised to allow comparison and account for the age structure of disease and outcomes, but users should consider the caveats and also apply knowledge of the demographic structure and disease burden in their own locality. It should also be noted that there are many confounding factors contributing to CVD risk. We encourage users to apply critical thinking to the findings of these indicators and we welcome any feedback or any queries arising from the data.

For a full list of the caveats to aid interpretation, a ‘New Indicator Guide’ will be published alongside the indicators on 26th February 2024. This will also contain a full breakdown of the methodology behind the indicators and guidance on how they should be used

For queries, please contact the CVDPREVENT Support Team at: nhsbn.cvdprevent@nhs.net

For the latest news and updates, follow us on Twitter: @CVDPREVENTaudit

We're ‘Going Red’ for Heart Month!

This month we are supporting the British Heart Foundation in their Go Red for Heart Month campaign. 

The British Heart Foundation funds around £100 million of research each year into all heart and circulatory diseases and their causes. Their vision is a world without the fear of heart and circulatory diseases: “a world without heartbreak”. We'd like to help them work towards that goal! Read more about their amazing research here

What are We Doing?

On Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th our office will go ‘Red’, where staff will wear red. This maybe be head to toe in red, or it could be a red accessory or even just lipstick! Check out our social media to find out more!

Later this month the team will be able to take part in the BHF's free RevivR session, where staff can learn CPR in just 15 minutes.

Knowing Your Numbers

It is strongly advised that we all ‘know our numbers’. Being informed of our blood pressure is the first step in preventing heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure, to name a few. 

Anyone is able to get their blood pressure tested at your pharmacy, GP surgery or as part of your NHS Health Check (these are advised for those aged 40 - 74 every five years). Your height, weight, and cholesterol are also checked during this appointment to give a rounded view of your overall health, and the ability to give you a cardiovascular risk score. Find more avenues to get your blood pressure checked here

Find out what your numbers mean here

CVDPREVENT Clinical Audit

The CVDPREVENT audit, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) and funded by NHS England & NHS Improvement, aims to support professionally-led quality improvement in primary care for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in England. The audit is delivered by the NHS Benchmarking Network, the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID) - National Cardiovascular Intelligence Network (NCVIN) team, and NHS Digital.

CVDPREVENT is a primary care audit which automatically extracts data from 98% of the GP practices in England. This data updated quarterly provides insights into the diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and potential overtreatment of patients with and at risk of Cardiovascular diseases.

Statistics - September 2023 - present

• 1.94% of patients who were in the risk range for hypertension did not have a diagnosis, this means that over 950,000 people, in the audit sample, were not diagnosed.

• In those diagnosed 85.09% received a blood pressure test in the last 12 months, however this means that almost 1.2 million patients did not receive a test.

• In patients with diagnosed Cardiovascular diseases, 81.75% received lipid lowering therapy meaning that almost 500,000 patients did not receive lipid lowering therapy.

Find out more about CVDPREVENT and access the data and improvement tool here

The NHS Benchmarking Network are thrilled to announce a GP Benchmarking initiative!

The Independent Doctors Federation have commissioned the NHS Benchmarking Network to launch the GP Benchmarking campaign as a part of the Networks bespoke services.  This campaign tackles the updated Care Quality Commission Good Governance regulations and gives valuable insight and identifies areas for improvement.

The GP Benchmarking campaign is a unique opportunity for members of the Independent Doctors Federation to measure and improve their care and treatment outcomes.

The campaign aims to support IDF members in meeting the CQC's Regulation 17: Good governance, which was updated in August 2023. The regulation requires GP practices to monitor and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of their services. This initiative will help GP’s to do this by providing a Practice and a Patient Survey, alongside a benchmarking report that will compare results with other similar practices.

The Practice Survey covers three clinical areas: hypertension, hypothyroidism and statins. GP practices are required to provide information on the prevalence, prescribing and monitoring of these conditions in their practice. IDF members can download the full specification of the questions here and complete the survey offline. All responses will be kept confidential.

Please watch this Webinar video for more information.

The Patient Survey is designed to capture patient views and satisfaction with their GP’s own practice. It is available as a QR Code that can easily be shared with patients.

The deadline for completing both surveys is 30th April 2024.

By taking part in this campaign, GP practices will not only demonstrate compliance with the CQC regulation, but also gain valuable insights into their practice's performance and areas for improvement.

If you are not a member of IDF and you want to join this campaign, please contact their membership team to find out how to become a member. As a member, you will benefit from access to exclusive resources, events, training and networking opportunities. You will also be part of a community of professionals who share your passion for improving the private healthcare system.

If you have any questions or need any support, please email the IDF at info@idf.co.uk  

If you would like to discuss membership or bespoke services the NHS Benchmarking Network offer please contact enquiries@nhsbenchmarking.nhs.uk

Unveiling our 2024/25 member work programme

We are thrilled to introduce our member work programme for 2024/25.

The new member work programme has innovation, collaboration, shared learning and high-quality data at its heart. Whether you are an existing member or considering joining our community, we feel there is something in this work programme that will benefit you and your organisation.

Members can look forward to engaging projects, interactive events and insightful data aimed at addressing key challenges and delivering opportunities across all sectors.

Registration for the 2024/25 member projects begins from March, with data collection beginning from April. Please make sure you renew your membership so you don’t miss out.

Membership renewals
We’d like to thank each of our members for being a part of our benchmarking community in 2023/24. Our team will be reaching out to all designated Product (membership) Leads over the coming weeks. Please look out for communications from Kim Burton, Network Development Manager, including a NHSBN membership renewal letter and information on next steps.

Not yet a member?
If you are from a non-member organisation, we invite you to have a conversation about how the 2024/25 member work programme can support you. Please get in touch with the Support Team to arrange this.

National Audit of Care at the End of Life (NACEL) 2024 – What next?

Firstly, we’d like to thank everybody who attended our warm up event a few weeks ago. We’re thrilled to have welcomed nearly 300 attendees on the call. We hope you found the session worthwhile in helping you prepare for NACEL 2024. If you’d like to rewatch any of the session, you can access the recording and slides through the warm up event page via the NACEL portal.

At the moment, NACEL registration is in full swing. Data collection for NACEL will be opening on 1st of January 2024. If you haven’t yet registered, now is the time to do so!

Before participating, it’s key to understand some of the key changes that will incorporate NACEL 2024, such as a new reporting tool to easily identify improvement with benchmarking at differing system levels and quality improvement support for audit participants.

We are also delighted to confirm that we’ve increased the accessibility of the Quality Survey. The survey of the bereaved person’s feedback is now available in the 10 main languages spoken in England and Wales, as well as English and Welsh. The translated versions of the Quality Survey can be printed and handed to people to complete. The translated surveys are available here.

You can do a number of things to prepare for NACEL 2024:

• Review the NACEL guidance notes and questionnaires, available to download from the audit guidance page of the website

• We recommend that you suspend local bereavement surveys whilst participating in the  NACEL Quality Survey.

• Consider whether you will implement the NACEL Quality Survey from the 1st of January, and how and when is best to communicate this information e.g., during the collection of the death certificate, via an electronic messaging system, posters, etc. Example Quality Survey promotional resources are available: poster, leaflet and letter.

• If your organisation has a bereavement office, we recommend contacting the team for help and advice.

• Decide whether you will distribute an online Quality Survey link/QR code, or distribute the paper version.

• Explore whether your organisation complies with the national data opt-out and where this information is stored. The national data opt-out is a service that allows patients to opt out of their confidential patient information being used for research and planning. It is the organisation’s responsibility to ensure that the appropriate patient data is submitted to the NACEL 2024 Case Note Review.

Keep an eye out for further communications to be released by the NACEL team. You can find out all the latest information by accessing our new portal here: https://www.nacel.nhs.uk

If you have any questions, please contact the NACEL team here: nhsbn.nacelsupport@nhs.net