News / Quality incentive scheme set for North West roll-out

The North West has been piloting an incentive-based system to drive quality and is looking to roll it out across the health economy early in the New Year. The system, which recently underwent a name change from Paying for Quality to Advancing Quality, is based on a US performance management system known as Pay for Performance, developed by the Premier healthcare group.

The US system assesses performance using more than 30 clinical measures spread across five clinical conditions – acute myocardial infarction (AMI), coronary artery bypass graft, heart failure, community-acquired pneumonia, and hip and knee replacements. The North West is now implementing the same system using the same measures and clinical conditions in what Joe Rafferty, director of commissioning and strategy at NHS North West, described as a ‘great piece of plagiarism’.

The first comparative performance information will be published in October 2008, with the first incentive payments made a year later. Payments, funded from a 0.1% top-slice of primary care trust allocations, are likely to be paid to top performers and significant improvers.

SHA finance director Mark Ogden said the scheme could deliver potential savings of £18m across the health economy but this was a ‘byproduct’ to the real goals of improved services. In the US, the scheme had produced reductions in mortality rates and readmissions.