Payment by Healthy Results Consultation

email to a friend | user comments

Published: 20 March 2007

Payment by Healthy Results Consultation

Strengthening the data underpinning the NHS's payment scheme, ensuring greater clinical involvement, setting some prices based on efficient practice and deciding how best to fairly reward specialised services are some of the ideas that have been put out to consultation by Health Minister Andy Burnham.

In a consultation about the future of Payment by Results - the system by which hospitals are paid for the work they do - Andy Burnham invited views on a number of ways to develop the system for 2008/09 and beyond.

The ideas under consideration include:

· strengthening the data which underpins Payment by Results - this will help make the tariff calculation more robust, and help ensure providers of highly specialised care are fairly rewarded

· more unbundling of tariff prices to help commissioners redesign the care offered to patients, for example offering some services closer to home

· developing the national tariff by setting some prices based on effective practice, rather than on average costs as at present, and

· extending the principles of Payment by Results to a wider range of services and settings

Andy Burnham, Minister of Health said:

"Payment by Results is still a relatively new way of funding the NHS, but already it's making a real difference to the way that care is provided and organised.

In the past, the NHS was paid on historic practice rather than for what it actually did, with little incentive to be more efficient.

Payment by results changes this - putting a greater focus on quality rather than haggling over price.

NHS staff who are already implementing Payment by Results say that better information about where money is being used is helping inform decisions about where and how services should be provided - which is good for patient care and good for efficiency.

We are committed to Payment by Results as a means of paying for services, but it's really important that we work with clinicians to shape services going forward - learning from our own and international experience.

I encourage people to respond to this consultation: clinical involvement is crucial - we have to make sure that the data we rely on is collected and organised in a way that makes sense to clinicians who care for patients."

The government claims that PbR is responsible for distributing over £22bn in 2006/07 - over 60% of acute hospital income and that, as a result, PbR is changing the nature of the dialogue between commissioners and providers, with a far greater emphasis on the service being provided.

As part of the consultation, the Department has established joint working arrangements with the British Association of Day Surgery to inform work on applying the tariff to the same services provided in different settings.

The consultation is open until Friday 22 June and responses should be sent to futureofpbr@dh.gsi.gov.uk

Further information

Options for the Future of Payment by Results: 2008/09 to 2010/11

DH – Payment by Results

British Association of Day Surgery

King's Fund - Payment by results

NatPaCT - Understanding Payment by Results

NLH - Health Management - Payment by Results

Payment by Results - The National Council for Palliative Care

Related articles

PBR Reform Role

Mandatory Requirements for the 2006 Reference Costs Collection