7. EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY
7.1.1 What is the Department doing to improve
the measurement of NHS productivity? What quality aspects and
what health outcome factors does the Department wish to have taken
into account in measuring productivity? What data are so far available
from the research that the Department has commissioned from the
Centre for Health Economics at the University of York? (Q80)
Answer
1. The Department has commissioned the Centre
for Health Economics (CHE) at the University of York to look at
ways of improving the measurement of productivity, including its
coverage of healthcare activity and improving the measurement
of quality.
2. The Department continues to work closely
with the Office for National Statistics to develop new ways to
improve the measurement of NHS productivity.
3. The Department wishes for as many areas
of quality as possible to be included in the measure of productivity
so that it more accurately reflects the healthcare received by
patients. A particular area of interest is whether Patient Reported
Outcome Measures can be used as a way to take account of the health
gains from treatments in a more comprehensive way. This would
allow the measurement of health outcomes to be more systematic
and improve the way that productivity is measured.
4. CHE has produced national NHS productivity
figures for 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07. These include
measures of quality including health outcomes, waiting times and
improvement in health status due to primary care interventions.
They have also published estimates of NHS input growth for 2007-08.
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