News / Standards mark renewed costing push

NHS Improvement last month published its long-awaited Case for change document – making the case for its Costing Transformation Programme, alongside its first draft of new acute costing standards and minimum software requirements.

Speaking to the HFMA costing conference in April, NHS Improvement director of costing Richard Ford said adoption of the standards would become mandatory from December, leading to a preset timetable for each provider sector.

‘I don’t want it to be a regulatory issue,’ he said. ‘I want you to adopt as early as you can, so that when mandation happens in December it’s not a big issue for anyone.’

The new standards are primarily for six roadmap partners. But they will be of interest to all providers as the first to underpin a revised approach that maps costs to resources and activities. Further draft acute standards will be published in January 2017, alongside first standards for other sectors.

The standards to be used for the first mandatory collection are due in January 2018.

Organisations taking part in this year’s voluntary patient cost collection will use the existing Approved costing guidance supported by HFMA’s costing standards. NHS Improvement has confirmed that for the voluntary collection in September 2017, acute providers will be ‘encouraged’ to use the new draft costing standards to be published next January.

See 'Clear direction of travel'