PIP Benefits

The direct benefits from the programme are in terms of influencing and implementing large scale change:

Influencing behaviours and culture
Building capability and capacity of staff
Improved productivity and quality of care across care pathways
Better comparison of clinical care across care pathways
Common language of service delivery amongst Providers and Commissioners
Better identification of gaps in service provision as teams are attributed to care clusters and gaps in meeting needs of care clusters becomes transparent
Improved care co-ordination across care pathways
Understanding costs of services
Identifying and comparing different service models to meet the local population need
Encouraging an overall health economy approach to productivity improvements
Focus on design of the health care system to achieve efficiencies and better patient care rather than adding more resources to it

The programme offers ancillary benefits which are gained via the process of gathering the data which has led to improvements to underlying systems and processes, providing consistency of approach and the participatory approach that stimulates dialogue amongst stakeholders leading to energy, engagement and mobilization of change.

Challenges

The national challenge is for developing a costing model for local currency and PbR tariff for Mental Health services and work is underway to inform this via the development of a quality and outcomes framework and mapping of patient pathways across the various clusters of need. Once the costing model is finalized data generated from these frameworks and tools will be used to inform PbR tariff.

The Learning Disabilities work is making good in roads to mirror the good progress in mental health in terms of development of a service user cluster model which is being tested by early adopter sites from community and specialist provision.

The programme is nationally a forerunner in respect to both these aspects.