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 identifies issues for discussion in areas such as efficiency, patient management and payments, as well as specific data quality issues relevant to the assurance framework.
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.
We add new data to the Benchmarker regularly. Information on Independent Sector providers and Accident and Emergency (A&E) data has been recently updated.
National Benchmarker data is accessed through the assurance portal.
Assurance portal
The Payment by Results assurance portal has been developed to support all aspects of the data assurance framework. It includes:
- guidance designed to take you through each step of the assurance framework
- a document library where you can find all benchmarking reports relevant to your trust(s)
- an audit tracker that allows you to track the progress of your audit, updated on a weekly basis
- an easy to use scorecard viewer in the National Benchmarker which makes analysis simple
If you are a new user please complete our registration form to obtain a password.
If you already have a password, you can log in to the assurance portal.
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).