This document informs mental health trusts, PCTs and SHAs of the criteria against which mental health performance will be assessed. It should be read alongside Implementing the NHS Performance Framework.
Download the document. It should be read in conjunction with Annex A and Annex B.
Key points include:
- April 2010 sees the implementation of the NHS Performance Framework in PCT commissioners and mental health trusts.
- It does not apply to single speciality learning disability trusts, nor does it apply to Foundation Trusts who will continue to be regulated by Monitor as set out in their Terms of Authorisation. The three NHS Trusts that provide high secure services will be assess under the NHS Performance Framework until such time they attain FT equivalent status.
- Subject to data availability, the Q1 2010/11 results of the NHS Performance Framework applied to mental health trusts will be made public by the DH in the Autumn.
- Performance is assessed across four domains – Finance, Service Performance, Quality and Safety, plus User Experience.
- Providers will be classified overall as either Performing, Performance under review, or Underperforming.
- The indicators under the Service Performance domain are drawn from Existing Commitments and Tiers 1 and 2 of Vital Signs as they apply to mental health trusts. They have been supplemented by some additional indictors that originate from existing legislation, guidance or the CQC’s Annual Health Check. Detailed indicator definitions and performance thresholds can be found in the Annex. For many indicators there are already data collections in place but there will also need to be some new or amended collections. These will be subject to approval via the Review of Central Returns (ROCR) as is usual Departmental policy.
- Under Quality and Safety, the results of this domain will be based on the most current information publicly available from CQC at the time of production of the Performance Framework results. Trusts that are initially registered with the CQC with conditions will be categorised as Performance under review.
- Performance under the User Experience domain will derive from results from the 200 community mental health services survey. The result of the user experience domain will be used as a moderator of overall organisational performance – i.e. if a provider is underperforming on user experience, it cannot be classified overall as better than performance under review.
- Financial performance data will be sourced and calculated from the Financial Information Management System (FIMS). The indicators are divided into five sub-domains, including initial planning; year to date financial performance; forecast outturn; underlying financial position; financial processes and balance sheet efficiency. Some of the indicators in these sub-domains may be new to providers as they rely on information the Department does not currently performance manage. Therefore, there may be some data quality issues relating to these new indicators, but they should, the Department says, be rapidly resolved.