Right data, right payment
Annual report on the Payment by Results data assurance programme 2011/12
The Audit Commission’s Payments by Results (PbR) data assurance programme helps improve data quality in the NHS. For the past five years we have provided assurance over the quality of the data that underpins payments made under PbR.
In 2011/12 we:
- reviewed commissioner arrangements to secure good data quality on the information that underpins PbR;
- audited inpatient clinical coding and the key data set that supports payment under PbR at every acute NHS trusts and foundation trusts; and
- followed up recommendations made in previous audits to see how well NHS trusts and foundation trusts have delivered.
When considering all trusts as a whole, performance on clinical coding has improved since the PbR assurance framework started, with lower average error rates each year and a smaller gap between the top and bottom of the error range.
We also followed up progress on the recommendations and areas for improvement made in previous reviews. Overall progress was disappointing, with, for example, less than half of trusts completing or making satisfactory progress on recommendations following outpatient data audits.
Consistent good performance is rarer than variable or consistently poor performance, in our report we name the ten trusts in the best performing category and the ten in the worst performing category.
We also highlight five organisations that have not demonstrated the adequate resolution of issues referred to in our 2010/11 annual report and therefore may still have an incorrect 2010/11 reference costs submission.
This report contains a checklist we have developed to help, and the Audit Commission’s award-winning National Benchmarker can also be used to check for data discrepancies
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Right data, right payment: Annual report on the Payment by Results data assurance programme 2011/12