Chemotherapy has been part of the Department of Health‘s national Reference Costs collection since 2007. However, there has been concern at the large degree of variation in the unit costs reported. This could be due to differences in counting the activity undertaken, differing costing methodologies ans conventions or genuine differences in the costs incurred by organisations.
We were asked by the National Cancer Action Team (NCAT) to review Chemotherapy Reference Costs for 2008/09 and 2009/10 and analyse the data submitted by providers.
The report provides an overview of the data available from reference costs and calculates key ratios by provider so as to highlight where differences occurred. It then assesses the usefulness of reference cost data in calculating a potential national tariff that could be employed in commissioning chemotherapy services should the service be brought into the scope of the national tariff.