The National Benchmarker is a powerful online tool that compares acute hospital activity data, clinical coding and Payment by Results (PbR) related measures with other organisations. It can be used to inform many areas of work: efficiency and productivity, contracting, information, service redesign, quality accounts and data quality in general.
The National Benchmarker also provides access to a report library containing benchmarking and audit reports relevant to your trust(s), and a set of analysis profiles for trusts, PCTs and SHAs.
Login to the National Benchmarker now.
If you are a new user please complete our registration form to obtain a password.
And if you would like to talk to somebody about how the tool can benefit your organisation please email pbr-benchmarking@audit-commission.gov.uk.
We have recently produced a brand new set of Data Focus Reports which provide key messages from the national benchmarker analysis. Further information on these reports is available from the data focus reports FAQ page.
About the National Benchmarker
The National Benchmarker is freely available to all NHS organisations in the country. It provides detailed analysis of hospital data to allow local health economies to compare themselves against an expected level of activity based on the type of patients they have (known as a benchmark).
It is user-friendly and easy to use, providing access to detailed analysis in a simple format suitable for all staff types: analysts, managers and clinicians have all benefited from using the National Benchmarker.
The tool has a unique focus on payments by results, with analysis that covers all aspects of PbR updated in line with PbR rules:
- Admitted patient care.
- Outpatients.
- Accident and emergency.
- Reference costs.
- Independent sector provider NHS activity.
It contains over 60 indicators from general tests to focused data quality indicators, such as:
- mean price of spell;
- mean length of spell;
- zero length spell ratio;
- complication spell ratio;
- follow up ratio ;
- mean pre-op period of elective spell;
- multiple same-day outpatient attendance ratio;
- mean diagnoses per spell;
- post OPCS-4.3 procedure ratio;
- trust cancellation ratio; and
- many more.
We have recently released our new volume analysis, which identifies exceptionally high or low volumes of hospital activity, and estimates the financial impact of this over or under performance. Whilst extreme outliers are often caused by clear data quality issues, this tool also provides intelligence to support commissioning decisions around potential over or under-provision of care.
The National Benchmarker also contains three separate reference costs tools which contain the analysis used to support the Audit Commission’s review of 2009/10 reference costs submissions. These tools are:
- Cost variance tool - looks at differences between reported and expected unit costs for each treatment area.
- Activity reconciliation tool - compares activity data submitted in reference costs to activity reported in Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).
- Activity share tool - looks at whether a trust is undertaking its expected share of activity for its size.
In September 2011 we will be updating the Benchmarker again to reflect changes to payment rules for 2011/12.
If you would like to talk to somebody about how the tool can benefit your organisation please email pbr-benchmarking@audit-commission.gov.uk.
Help and assistance
The following resources are available to help you get the most out of the National Benchmarker:
- Tutorial Video - a complete training session in how to use the tool and how to draw judgements from the analysis
- User Guide (PDF, 3.6mb) - a companion document to the tutorial video which outlines the National Benchmarker's functionality
- Release Notes (PDF, 33kb) - a brief document outlining the changes incorporated in recent release and caveats around the retrospective nature of some of our analysis
Case studies
John Harrison, Plymouth Primary Care Trust says:
'I've got a much fuller, richer picture about what is going on. I'm not aware of anything else that can give such up-to-date analysis and the kind of ratio analysis that the National Benchmarker does.'
Plymouth Care Trust: full case study
Claire Oates, Service Reporting Accountant at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust says:
'It's a huge help both internally, to improve how we are managing activity and information, and externally, to pre-empt and investigate potential questions from commissioners.'
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust: full case study
Vinidh Paleri, Consultant Surgeon at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust says:
'When clinicians take responsibility in the coding process, the outcome and coding accuracy increases. The National Benchmarker is a useful tool for clinicians as well as managers. It is a fantastic resource to log on to and check how your trust or specialty compares with others.'
Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: full case study
Joint working
We are indebted to the ongoing support of the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care (external link) who were instrumental in working with us to develop our benchmarking methodology, and who provide ongoing support to what is the first comprehensive programme of national benchmarking using data from the Secondary Uses Service (SUS).