Invitation for comment: Improving the value of drug treatment systems - draft assumptions
The consultation has now closed.
The NTA has been asked by the Government to develop a model of drug treatment systems, and a related tool, that can help commissioning partnerships in delivering the best possible outcomes from the available resources for their treatment systems. This is in response to the recent increases in pooled treatment budget funding, the availability of more robust performance and cost data for treatment services, and the publication in 2007 of a suite of clinical guidance for the drug treatment field.
The NTA is asking for comments on the draft assumptions behind the proposed model. Once these assumptions have been agreed, the NTA will publish a tool which will enable areas to combine their outcomes and their unit cost data for those key substantial components of the drug treatment system that are described by this model, and to assess these against national benchmarks.
It is hoped that this will provide partnerships with a powerful aid for considering whether any changes may need to be made to the design of the treatment system so as to optimise outcomes, taking into account their own local needs assessment or other relevant local factors.
The development of the model to date has been informed by relevant Government departments and a consultation event with stakeholders held in July 2008. Please find the consultation document here.
We welcome your comments on the consultation document; please see the following instructions for feedback:
1. Please use this form for submitting your comments to the NTA. We are unable to accept comments in other formats.
2. Please put each new comment in a new row.
3. Please do not paste other tables into the response table provided, as your comments could get lost.
4. Please type directly into the table provided.
5. For comments that do not directly answer the questions, please insert the section number in the first column (see examples on the pro forma). If your comment relates to the document as a whole, please put ‘general' in this column. Please refer to section numbers and not page numbers.
6. Please provide supporting evidence for your comments.
7. If you are happy for us to contact you, please provide us with your contact details in case we need to seek clarification.
8. Returns should be submitted by email to model@nta-nhs.org.uk by 5pm on 12 January 2009.
A draft version of the proposed prototype tool can be downloaded here. Comments on the tool are also welcomed.
NTA lead
Matt Gill
Value improvement project manager
matt.gill@nta-nhs.org.uk
