Determining local service levels for a cardiac rehabilitation service
Benchmarks for a standard population
Available data suggest that the standard benchmark rate for a cardiac rehabilitation service for all the conditions/procedures listed in the commissioning section of this guide is 0.20%, or 200 per 100,000, population per year.
For a standard primary care trust population of 250,000, the average number of people requiring cardiac rehabilitation would be 500 per year (0.20% of the population).
For an average practice with a list size of 10,000, the average number of people requiring cardiac rehabilitation would be 20 per year (0.20% of the population).
The estimates used in the calculation of the benchmark for cardiac rehabilitation are provided by the topic-specific advisory group; they are based on best practice and are the proportions that could be achieved given optimal service design.
This service is likely to fall under the programme budgeting category 210A (problems of circulation - coronary heart disease).
Examine the assumptions used in estimating these figures.
Use the cardiac rehabilitation service commissioning and benchmarking tool to determine the level of service that might be needed locally and to calculate the cost of commissioning the service using the indicative benchmark and/or your own local data.
Further information
Sources of further information to help you in assessing local health needs and reducing health inequalities include:
- Annex A of the ‘Commissioning framework for health and well-being' outlines the process and data needed to undertake a joint strategic needs assessment.
- Department of Health ‘Delivering quality and value - focus on benchmarking'.
- NICE ‘Health equity audit - learning from practice briefing'.
- The ‘No delays achiever' provides access to service improvement tools aimed at reducing time between referral and treatment.
- The ‘Practice-based commissioning comparators reporting service' provides access to a range of indicators and activity data at practice level, enabling a better understanding of local commissioning activity, referral patterns and outcomes.
- The ‘Disease management information toolkit (DMIT)' is a good-practice tool for decision-makers, commissioners and deliverers of care for people with long-term conditions, which presents data on conditions that contribute to high numbers of emergency bed days. It models the effects of possible interventions that may be commissioned at a local level and helps users to consider the likely impact of commissioning options.
- The ‘PBS diabetes population prevalence model' may be useful in modelling the proportion of undiagnosed diabetes in a population, and assessing future demand for services.
- Disease prevalence models produced by the Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO) provide PCT-level prevalence estimates for hypertension and coronary heart disease.
- ‘PARR (Patients at risk of re-hospitalisation)' is a risk prediction system for use by primary care trusts to identify patients at high risk of hospital re-admission.
- PRIMIS+ provides support to general practices on information management, recording for, and analysis of, data quality, plus a comparative analysis service focused on key clinical topics.
This page was last updated: 29 April 2010
- Cardiac rehabilitation service
- Commissioning a cardiac rehabilitation service
- Specifying a cardiac rehabilitation service
- Determining local service levels for a cardiac rehabilitation service
- Assumptions used in estimating a population benchmark
- The commissioning and benchmarking tool
- Ensuring corporate and quality assurance
