Approved Costing Guidance
The Approved Costing Guidance explains how NHS trusts should cost at patient level using the costing standards and then submit cost data using the National Cost Collection guidance. It is updated annually.
The collection of patient-level costing data helps the NHS manage costs, improve productivity, eliminate unwarranted variation and, overall, improve services for patients.
Contents
- What is the Approved Costing Guidance?
- Approved Costing Guidance for 2024
- Supporting content
- Archived guidance
What is the Approved Costing Guidance?
The Approved Costing Guidance (ACG) comprises the documentation and tools for providers of NHS services to submit National Cost Collection (NCC) data.
The main audience for the guidance is healthcare costing professionals but they have also been written with secondary audiences in mind, such as clinicians, and informatics and finance colleagues. The use of the term ‘patient’ across all sectors allows us to maintain consistency in the standards for an individual’s entire health and social care pathway.
Approved Costing Guidance for 2024
All the prescribed guidance for the 2024 submission for all sectors is listed below.
| Introduction and general guidance (all sectors) | Date published/updated |
|---|---|
| Introduction to the Approved Costing Guidance | 6 March 2024 |
| Summary of changes | 6 March 2024 |
| The costing principles | 6 March 2024 |
| Costing diagram | 6 March 2024 |
| Quick guide | 6 March 2024 |
| Costing glossary | 6 March 2024 |
| DVE business rules | 25 March 2024 |
| Integrated standards, guidance and technical documents | |
| Integrated costing standards | 6 March 2024 |
| Integrated National Cost Collection guidance | 23 April 2024 |
| Integrated technical document | 6 March 2024 |
| Integrated extract specification | 6 March 2024 |
| Integrated schema | 6 March 2024 |
| Ambulance standards, guidance and technical documents | |
| Ambulance costing standards | 6 March 2024 |
| Ambulance National Cost Collection guidance | 6 March 2024 |
| Ambulance technical document | 6 March 2024 |
| Ambulance extract specification | 6 March 2024 |
| Ambulance schema | 6 March 2024 |
Supporting content
Supporting content is available on the FutureNHS costing workspace to support costing practitioners primarily in the Supporting the Approved Costing Guidance and Supporting the National Cost Collection sections. Links to the PLICS dashboards are on the Data Insight Hub.
Resources include:
- Minimum software requirements
- Resource application hierarchy
- Briefing papers
- Learning extensions
- Quantum reconciliation templates
Archived guidance
The 2021, 2022 and 2023 Approved Costing Guidance can be found at the Approved Costing Guidance archive.
For further support and advice please contact us at costing@england.nhs.uk. You can also sign up for our FutureNHS costing workspace for more resources and support options.