Run in partnership with McKinsey, FTN Benchmarking is an initiative which provides a more complete and balanced assessment of service improvement opportunities than other benchmarking services, by analysing trusts' performance in three areas:
- quality (clinical outcomes and patient experience)
- cost effectiveness
- operational management
Participating trusts benefit from being able to access the wealth of experience and challenge that McKinsey offer, as well as working closely with the FTN team, who understand the specific challenges FTs face.
Over the last four years the FTN's unique benchmarking service has delivered tangible benefits to a broad range of foundation trusts. FTN Benchmarking helps trusts meet one of the biggest challenges they now face in striving to deliver high quality and responsive patient care - the mismatch between income models under Payment by Results and traditional NHS accounting practices. FTN Benchmarking is specifically geared towards helping organisations meet this challenge by modelling and analysing costs at a highly detailed level.
The FTN Benchmarking team works intensively with staff from participating trusts to build a 'ground-up' understanding of service costs at an HRG level. This typically produces a much fuller and more accurate picture of costs than those calculated for reference cost submissions, and helps staff develop the skills to operate confidently and effectively within the national tariff framework. It is also invaluable in supporting more accurate and confident financial planning and service development.
The FTN Benchmarking team produces analyses of the benchmarking data to identify specific and targeted improvement actions for each trust. Interactive discussions at the findings workshop aim to give service improvement advice and highlight areas of best practice, both from within the group and from leading international healthcare providers. The data analysis and comparisons provide a launch pad for improvement conversations both between participants at the workshops and also between colleagues in participating trusts. Clear rules governing data confidentiality and use are agreed in advance.
Announcing the 2010 maternity benchmarking project
The FTN will soon begin the third maternity benchmarking project for Foundation Trust Network members. The project will take place from November 2010 to January 2011 with a findings workshop in January 2011. This project will benefit trusts that would like to:
• make efficiency savings while maintaining and improving quality
• generate validated, comparable data to provide a solid basis for learning, planning and reporting to trust boards
• take part in the UK’s most detailed benchmarking project on maternity services
• compare performance and learn from others facing the same challenges
The programme is open to all FTN members (both authorised and aspirant foundation trusts) and trusts interested in participating are encouraged to register early. Full details about how to take part and the benefits resulting from being part of the project are available in the following documents:
• FTN Benchmarking Maternity Services
• Benchmarking FAQs
Driving Performance Improvement - Briefings
Briefings from our latest completed projects can be found in the related documents section on the right side of this page and include:
Further Information
For further information on FTN Benchmarking please call Liz Smith on 020 7074 3366 or e-mail liz.smith@nhsconfed.org.
See what people involved in previous projects say about the work by watching our short video below.