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 2025
- 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 2025
All the prescribed guidance for the 2025 submission for all sectors is listed below.
| Introduction and general guidance (all sectors) | Date published/updated |
|---|---|
| Introduction to the Approved costing guidance | 5 March 2025 |
| Summary of changes | 5 March 2025 |
| The costing principles | 5 March 2025 |
| Costing diagram | 5 March 2025 |
| Quick guide | 5 March 2025 |
| Costing glossary | 5 March 2025 |
| DVE business rules | 5 March 2025 |
| Integrated standards, guidance and technical documents | |
| Integrated costing standards | 5 March 2025 |
| Integrated national cost collection guidance | 5 March 2025 |
| Integrated technical document | 5 March 2025 |
| Integrated extract specification | 5 March 2025 |
| Integrated schema | 5 March 2025 |
| Ambulance standards, guidance and technical documents | |
| Ambulance costing standards | 5 March 2025 |
| Ambulance national cost collection guidance | 5 March 2025 |
| Ambulance technical document | 5 March 2025 |
| Ambulance extract specification | 5 March 2025 |
| Ambulance schema | 5 March 2025 |
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
Approved Costing Guidance from previous years 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.