Case study / A vision for system costing

In December 2023, the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System was awarded the HFMA costing award for their innovative approach to system wide costing and benchmarking. 

In addition to costing teams in each provider organisation, the Mid and South Essex system costing hub was set up within the Integrated Care Board to ensure that ICS-wide costing information would be available to support decision making for service transformation.

In addition to forming a costing hub, the ICB has worked with ICS partners to establish a clinically led stewardship programme to support redesign of care across system wide partner organisations and care settings. Staff from the hub are among the core membership of each stewardship group, contributing costing and activity data and providing support to decision making.

This case study describes the evolution of the costing function over the past three years, highlights an early example of the how combined costing teams were fundamental to supporting service change and sets out the function’s ambitions for continued contribution to service transformation.

The full case study is available for members of the Healthcare Costing for Value Institute. Members must be logged in to the HFMA website to be able to access it. Details of Institute benefits and how to apply to join the Institute as a partner organisation can be found here.