Working together to improve out of hours care
through a national benchmark
“At last there is a real hope that we will soon be able to accurately compare services across all out of hours providers and drive up the quality of care for patients”
David Colin-Thomé, National Clinical Director for Primary Care.
The Department of Health has selected the Primary Care Foundation to support a national benchmark of out of hours services. The aim is to offer clear and consistent comparisons for local commissioners of health services and the general public in a way that is simple and easy for providers to use. This initiative has widespread support, and is backed by the NHS Alliance and Primary Care Contracting.
The Primary Care Foundation will build on an audit tool developed and refined by the Audit Commission. It will seek to offer direct comparisons on:
Importantly, because the benchmark will collect information about a number of ‘explanatory factors’, users of the benchmark will be able to choose their own comparator group so that they can, for example:
There are still challenges in ensuring that everyone is measuring the same thing in the same way. We will use a common data extract from all providers so that there are direct comparisons across the whole country. The Department of Health has funded the initial development costs, and will now be looking to PCTs to fund the modest costs of supporting this benchmark.
With a common extract and more detail from providers, it is planned to develop the benchmark to include measures of productivity and to allow considerably richer data comparison to support understanding and learning.
“We are nearly at the end of a series of rigorous pilots to test out the benchmark as it is now and to look for any immediate improvements, before a wider launch in the Summer and early Autumn” said Dr David Carson, from the Primary Care Foundation and the lead in the development of the original report in 2000 establishing quality standards in out of hours care. “The beauty of benchmarking care is that everyone wins – providers can demonstrate what they do well and take steps to improve areas where they need to improve. Open and direct comparison fosters healthy competition and drives up performance across the sector. It also offers a firm basis for commissioners to review quality of care rather than simply comparing costs”.
PCTs and providers will be invited to regular seminars to look jointly at how they can improve their services, as well as learning from national best practice. This is a vital part of the package, which will help those involved to understand how the high-performing organisations are operating differently.
If you would like to be involved with this initiative, please contact Rick Stern on rick.stern@primarycarefoundation.co.uk or call on 07709 746771.
“A successful benchmark will help us celebrate the success of a service that supports over 8 million people a year and could offer fresh ideas for extending access in primary care and delivering consistent high quality care around the clock – key drivers for world class commissioning of the future”.
Michael Dixon, Chairman, NHS Alliance.