Background
The Contract & Information Shared Services Unit (CISSU) uses the National Benchmarker on a weekly basis as part of its role in providing secondary care and independent sector contract management services for the eight primary care trusts (PCTs) it serves in Cheshire and Merseyside.
Benefits
Jeanette Davies, Head of Information at CISSU, says: 'The National Benchmarker provides vital context for our own analysis. It enables us to validate the data we are producing. It has also been very useful in identifying and ironing out inconsistencies in local data collection. We have encouraged our PCTs to use the tool and we know they are doing so for a range of different things.'
Examples
'If, for example, PCTs want to compare with other places in different parts of the country or with the national benchmark then we would point them to the National Benchmarker. On data consistency, we had an instance with a piece of benchmarking work where we were confident that the methodology we were using was following national guidelines but another organisation in our area used a different methodology. We were able to use the National Benchmarker to confirm the methodology we were using was following a consistent national approach.'
Verdict
'Having a tool like this with the authority of the Audit Commission behind it adds real clout. It reinforces the analysis we carry out locally and provides a very accessible way of getting comparative data.'
'It is easy to use. It has everything in one place. You can easily select different indicators using the drop-down menus and the funnel plots allow you to immediately identify if a trust is an outlier or not.'
'It is also much more than just the benchmarking tool. We have used it as part of the Audit Commission's wider PbR data assurance framework and that is an important focus of our work.'