An NHS England toolkit has been launched which allows clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to see how interventions could improve local health services.
Using high level health system modelling, 'Any town' is a guide which aims to help commissioners with their five-year strategic plans.
The toolkit shows how a typical CCG could achieve financial balance over the strategic period up to 2018/19.
An NHS England toolkit has been launched which allows clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to see how interventions could improve local health services.
Using high level health system modelling, 'Any town' is a guide which aims to help commissioners with their five-year strategic plans.
The toolkit shows how a typical CCG could achieve financial balance over the strategic period up to 2018/19.
Using 2013/14 as a baseline, 'Any town' uses population size, disease prevalence and other data, to predict what a typical health system's quality and financial baseline could look like in five years.
The toolkit includes modelling specifically to reflect typical urban, suburban and rural health systems and interventions that could have most impact in each of these scenarios.
Professor Robert Harris, director of strategy at NHS England, said: "We are currently working with local health economies to ensure they have services in place that meet the specific needs of their populations. But we need to make further long-term radical changes to ensure that we have an NHS that can meet health demands, now and in the future, which provides high quality services for patients while being financially sustainable.
“We know there are proven interventions that can make a real difference. This resource brings together a wealth of information, data and research to highlight additional interventions that can potentially applied in ‘Any town’ in the country and make a real difference to patients while contributing to closing the financial black hole. The evidence is there, we now need to customise it for local use."
In urban areas there tends to be a younger demographic with a higher prevalence in COPD, mental health and depression. The model shows that that implementing interventions in urban areas could theoretically mean 7.9% decrease in potential years of life lost, 24.9% decrease in unplanned hospitalisation for chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions and a 60.6% decrease in unplanned hospitalisation for asthma, diabetes and epilepsy in the under 19s.
The toolkit includes five connected modules (downloadable PowerPoint files):
1. A methodology guide which introduces the work of the Any town project and explains the principles and methodology behind the project and the model. It describes how the interventions were selected and the detailed methodology of how the model calculated the results
5. A further information guide which provides information on the case studies used for the interventions.
These guides are intended to provide a high-level ‘starter for ten’ to assist with initial planning.
More information is available on the NHS England website.