Requirements specification for Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Early Implementers Collection for Further Services for Financial Year (FY) 2021/22 data

NHS England Costing Transformation Programme (CTP) was set up to implement PLICS across all secondary care providers.

The CTP involves:

• introducing and implementing new standards for patient-level costing
• developing and implementing one single national cost collection to replace current multiple collections
• establishing the minimum required standards for costing software and promoting its adoption
• driving and encouraging sector support to adopt Patient Level Costing methodology and technology

Patient Level Information Costing data is used to standardise the method of reporting cost information.

Providers as per Annex A Section 2 are requested to submit activity and financial data for in scope services in accordance with Annex A, Section 1.

PLICS data enables NHS England to perform its pricing and licensing functions under the Health and Care Act 2022 (the 2022 Act) more effectively. The data is used to:

• inform new methods of pricing NHS services;
• inform new approaches and other changes to the design of the currencies used to price NHS services
• contribute to NHS England’s strategic objective of a ‘single national cost collection²
• inform the relationship between provider characteristics and cost
• help Trusts to maximise use of their resources and improve efficiencies, as required by the provider licence;
• identify the relationship between patient characteristics and cost;
• identify the relationship between incident characteristics and cost
• support an approach to benchmarking for regulatory purposes; and

Scope

Under section 259(1)(a) of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (the 2012 Act), a Data Provision Notice will be served on the Trusts named at Annex A Section 2 who have agreed to participate in this voluntary early implementer collection to provide the data at Annex A Section 1 of this document.

Source

PLICS data will be collected from:

• acute providers
• mental health providers
• community providers

 Specific details of the trusts can be found in Annex A; Section 2.

Category

This is a collection of both identifiable patient level data and aggregate data, which will be held by NHS Digital. A full list of data items is shown at Annex A; Section 1.

Frequency

The PLICS collection year operates on a financial year basis. This is a one-off collection of data relating to Financial Year 2021/22 data to test the collection process and analysis of PLICS information from Early Implementers that have agreed to participate, as per Annex A Section 2. The data collection is planned to take place between 10 October 2022 and 28 October 2022. The intention is this collection will inform future mandatory collections of PLICS data to take place from 2023 onwards. 

Internal processing

Data received at NHS Digital is validated against an XML (Extensible Markup Language) schema. The outcome of schema validation is provided to providers. Data is stored and then matched if relevant. Data is processed, including further data quality checks, calculations and derivations being undertaken if relevant, and then pseudonymised before being provided to NHS England.

Data linkage

There will be no data linkage for this collection.

Upon receipt of the Directions for the continued implementation of PLICS collections, NHS Digital has, as required under section 258 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, consulted with the following persons:

• NHS England
• providers of Acute, Mental Health, Community services in accordance with Annex A, Section 2, of this document.
• representatives of other stakeholders who NHS Digital considers are likely to use the information to which the Mandatory Request relates, for example, relevant Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs).

This consultation took place between June 16 and July 1, 2022, for data items outlined in the Requirements Specification for collection in 2022.

Regular dissemination/sharing

NHS England require that NHS Digital does not exercise the powers conferred by sections 261(1) or (4) of the 2012 Act in relation to the information which it obtains by complying with this request, other than to disseminate information to such persons, for such purposes and at such times as may be agreed between NHS Digital and NHS England. Such consent to disseminate data shall not be unreasonably withheld by NHS England and would only be withheld where NHS England considers that use of the data would be either

• detrimental to the aims of the Costing Transformation Programme; or
• detrimental to NHS England performing its pricing and licensing functions under the 2022 Act

NHS Digital disseminates data via the Data Access Request Service (DARS) process. This process verifies that there is an appropriate legal basis for an applicant to access the requested data and that appropriate safeguards are in place to ensure that the applicant will store and handle data safely and securely.

A signed Data Sharing Framework Contract (DSFC) and Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) are each already in place between NHS Digital and NHS England, having been through the DARS process.

A change to that DSA will require a further application through DARS and may require consideration by the Advisory Group for Data (AGD).

Requests for data from external bodies for analysis and/or publication purposes will be outside the scope of this collection.

Data to be published

NHS Digital must not publish the data collected as part of these Directions In accordance with s260(2)(d) of the 2012 Act.

NHS Digital will utilise its existing systems to deliver the systems to enable the PLICS data collection and required processing. These will be updated and modified to collect and process the PLICS data for collection in 2022.

Changes to this specification will be managed by NHS Digital in conjunction with NHS England to ensure such changes are aligned with the Patient Level Information and Costing Systems (PLICS) Early Implementers Collection for Further Services for FY 2021/22 data Directions.