We reviewed and interpreted the RightCare data for Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to identify opportunities for service improvements and savings.
Action
Our Business Intelligence experts carried out:
* Deep dives into admissions of children and over 75s indicated in Commissioning for Value (CfV) packs
* Analysis of Secondary Uses Service (SUS) data at Spell Programme Budget level to show proportion of activity commissioned by the CCGs and by specialised services
* Assessment of impact of incorrect provider submission of SUS data locally on the national RightCare data (showing the opportunity presented was overstated)
* Development of summaries by Spell programme budget for elective and non-elective activity to show breakdowns by key SUS fields to enable commissioners to identify and focus on problem areas
* Development of a RightCare Tool to allow the CCGs to compare cost and activity against other CCGs supported by MLCSU and see trends over time.
We put the CCGs in touch with other CCGs across our patch to find out how they commissioned services in cases where our benchmarking indicated they were performing better.
Impact
The deep dives revealed that the CCGs were outliers against peers for almost all under 5s indicators. Our work indicated that pathways were different from those in other areas and that children attending the paediatric A&E department tended to be classed as emergency admissions whilst A&E rates for children were low.
This led to discussions with the provider and ultimately commissioning of a new pathway for children’s urgent care services. Since the service went live in December 2016 there has been a 25 per cent reduction in paediatric admissions and savings of £1.3m per annum.
All our findings fed into the RightCare Working Group and helped identify priority areas for pathway redesign and improvement to services in key areas.
The CCGs have run a Falls Redesign event attended by commissioners, providers, ambulance services, and Business Intelligence, Respiratory and Diabetes workshops, all of which utilised the analysis we provided.