Existing national targets 2006/2007

Introduction

Assessment of performance against the existing national targets is a component of the quality of services part of the Healthcare Commission's 2006/2007 annual health check performance rating. The existing national targets assess whether levels of service set through the 2003-2006 planning round are being maintained.

We will assess performance in relation to the existing national targets outlined in National Standards, Local Action using the indicators detailed under the relevant links on the left hand side of this webpage. For each target, we will assess the performance of organisations that provide services. Where appropriate, primary care trusts (PCTs) will also be assessed on the services they commission from providers.

The links on the left hand side of this webpage refer to the indicators that we will use to assess acute and specialist, ambulance, mental health and primary care trusts. Each indicator provides details of why the indicator is included (the 'rationale'), the data source and the period of time assessed by the indicator (the 'data period'), as well as how it will be calculated (the 'construction').

The Secretary of State for Health has formally approved these indicators.

Enquiries

We welcome feedback on, or enquiries about, the indicators. Please direct any enquiries to the performance indicators mailbox:

performance.indicators@healthcarecommission.org.uk

Our approach to targets

We will continue to use our experience of assessing performance relating to targets to contribute to improving the understanding of targets and addressing any unintended effects.

In the light of our experience of using some of the indicators in the 2005/2006 assessment, we reserve the right to make amendments where necessary to this published list at a later date. Any such amendments will be highlighted in the "What's new?" section at the top of this page and significant changes will be notified to trusts directly.

Hybrid trusts

Hybrid trusts (those healthcare organisations that provide functions of more than one type, for example, primary care trusts that also provide mental health services) should refer to the indicator lists for all relevant trust types. Their assessment will be based on all of the indicators for each of the functions they deliver.

Learning disability trusts

Learning disability trusts will not be assessed against this component of the annual health check.

How do we assess performance relating to the existing national targets?

The process for assessing performance relating to the existing national targets consists of:

• publication of indicators
• data collection
• data validation
• data ratification
• consideration of extenuating circumstances applications
• scoring
• publication of the score as part of the annual health check

This section outlines key activities and highlights important issues that healthcare organisations should take into account in preparing for our assessment.

Data collection

The Healthcare Commission is committed to reducing the burden of inspection and data collection on healthcare organisations. Where possible, we use data from existing, mandatory data collections to support our assessment of performance relating to the existing national targets. We therefore commission data from a range of data collectors - for example, the Department of Health, the Health and Social Care Information Centre, or the Royal Colleges - as indicated in the data source section of the indicators published on this website. As in previous years, we applied to the review of central returns (ROCR) for permission for special data collections. The deadline for the 2006/2007 special data collection was 9th May 2007.

Data quality and timeliness

Healthcare organisations are responsible for supplying accurate, good quality data. Complete data must be supplied by the deadlines set by data collectors.

Organisations can be penalised for poor quality data or if complete data are not returned by published deadlines.

Data collectors are responsible for data validation and healthcare organisations should ensure that they take up the opportunities provided for validation, as the Healthcare Commission will only allow changes to data in exceptional circumstances.

Ratification and Extenuating Circumstances

The ratification period for existing and new national target performance indicators went live to a secure website on Wednesday 16th May. The deadline to raise enquiries has passed for existing and new national targets. The deadline for submitting a request for extenuating circumstances to be taken into account has also passed for these components of the annual health check.

Ratification provided organisations with an opportunity to see the data that will be used to construct their performance score for each applicable indicator in this component of the annual health check. The exercise offered no opportunity to correct previously submitted data or to supply data that were not supplied within published data collection deadlines, unless actual performance or ability to submit data were adversely affected by an extenuating circumstance outside of the control of the organisation. The ratification process enabled organisations to check that the Healthcare Commission is using the data as they were supplied to the data collector, and to ensure that data have not been subject to transcription error during transfer.

The published protocol outlining the principles and the process in making an application for an extenuating circumstance request is available at:

http://www.healthcarecommission.org.uk/serviceproviderinformation/
annualhealthcheck/extenuatingcircumstances.cfm