Services for people with chronic heart failure
This is an extract from the commissioning guide. The complete commissioning guide is available at www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cmg39
6 The commissioning and benchmarking tool
- 6.1 Identify indicative local service requirements
- 6.2 Review current commissioned activity
- 6.3 Identify future change in capacity required
- 6.4 Model future commissioning intentions and associated costs
- 6.5 Potential savings
Download the chronic heart failure services commissioning and benchmarking tool.
Use the commissioning and benchmarking tool for chronic heart failure to determine the level of service that might be needed locally and to calculate the cost of commissioning the service, as described below.
6.1 Identify indicative local service requirements
Available data suggest that the indicative benchmark rate for:
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the number of adults aged 45 years or over with suspected heart failure per year is 450 per 100,000 population, or 0.45%.
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the number of adults aged 45 or over who should have their serum natriuretic peptides measured per year is 360 per 100,000 population, or 0.36%.
The commissioning and benchmarking tool helps you to assess local service requirements using the indicative benchmark as a starting point. With knowledge of your local population and its demographic, you can amend the benchmark to better reflect your local circumstances. For example, if your population is significantly younger or older than the average population, or has an ethnic composition different from the national average, or has a significantly higher or lower rate of chronic heart failure, you may need to provide services for relatively fewer or more people.
6.2 Review current commissioned activity
You may already commission a chronic heart failure service for your population. The tool provides tables that you can populate to help you calculate your total current commissioned activity and costs.
6.3 Identify future change in capacity required
Using the indicative benchmark provided, or your own local benchmark, you can use the commissioning and benchmarking tool to compare the activity that you might need to commission against your current commissioned activity. This will help you to identify the future change in capacity required. Depending on your assessment, your future provision may need to be increased or decreased.
6.4 Model future commissioning intentions and associated costs
You can use the commissioning and benchmarking tool to calculate the capacity and resources needed to move towards the benchmark level, and to model the required changes over a period of 4 years.
Use the tool to calculate the level and cost of activity you intend to commission. The tool is pre-populated with data on the potential recurrent and non-recurrent cost elements that may need to be considered in future service planning, which can be reviewed and amended to better reflect your local circumstances.
Commissioning decisions should consider both the clinical and economic viability of the service, and take into account the views of local people. Commissioning plans should also take into account the costs of monitoring the quality of the services commissioned.