NHS consultation on site multiplier and visibility of this impact through an NHS dashboard
Date: 22 September 2023
Throughout the summer, consultation has taken place with NHS organisations on changes required to the UK interactive Costing Tool to achieve a position of no local negotiation beyond the Lead NHS site review for late phase studies.
What the price variation data tells us
The data collected by NHS England throughout this process implementation has highlighted the major barriers being set-up fees and outsourcing. The price variation data submitted by the 25% of organisations not able to accept the site specific prices generated by the UK iCT ahead of October does not reveal any further significant areas of adjustments needed to the existing tariff. Analysis of these insights will continue to support the continual improvement of the tool in the future.
Changes being considered
To address the concerns raised the changes consulted on include a tiered R&D set-up fee, clarification of the definitions of the cost components (e.g. indirect costs and capacity building), assessment of the NHSE inflator value utilised, removal of pass through costs (patient expenses, archiving) into financial appendix and new site multiplier incorporating outsourcing and research factors. These changes will impact each NHS Organisation independent of their current adherence position. These will be presented to the UK Commercial Costing Reference Group who oversee the UK iCT.
Dashboards will show impact of changes for NHS organisations
The impact of the proposed changes will be shared with NHS organisations in England using a dashboard in Open Data Platform that enables direct comparison of the 23/24 tariff as it stands and with the proposed changes from October, with support to access this via the CRN business intelligence and local CRN teams.
Testing from October as part of National Contract Value Review expansion
Implementation of changes to support no local negotiation within the UK iCT during October marks the start of testing this approach and refinements to this methodology will continue as part of the UK iCT annual updates made in April to reflect each new financial year. Requests to change any components continue to be made through the online iCT feedback form and are overseen by the UK commercial costing reference group.
NCVR expansion: primary care setting and Early Phase/Advanced Therapies
Currently NCVR applies to NHS organisations only but ensuring that primary care can participate in NCVR is critical for patient access and developing the UK infrastructure for life sciences industry research.
To discuss the inclusion of primary care settings in NCVR, consultation meetings took place in July and August, with attendees from across the primary care community.
Feedback from these consultation meetings has been gathered and it has been agreed that the CRN will facilitate a voluntary acceptance scheme to allow GP Practices to commit to accepting the prices generated by the Interactive Costing Tool (iCT). This represents a significant business development opportunity for primary care sites and means that the UK will be the only country in the world with a truly single costing and contracting process which spans both primary and secondary care.
Practices will soon be able to sign up to voluntarily commit to accepting the costs generated by the iCT. A link will soon be shared to facilitate this.
From October, NCVR will expand from later phase studies into early phase, with a specific focus on Advanced Therapies (ATMPS). A dedicated working group has been convened with ATMP experts from across the health and care sector, including dedicated infrastructure groups such as UKCRF, Advance Therapies Treatment Centres (ATTC) and Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMC). NHSE chaired the first meeting in August to shape the required approach that will build on the efforts of these groups over the last few years.