Forward planner
The forward planner helps people plan for and implement NICE guidance by:
- summarising published guidance organisations may still be implementing
- listing forthcoming guidance to help NHS bodies plan ahead
- including an indicative cost for England for forthcoming guidance, based on the Institute's draft guidance where published
Using the forward planner
The forward planner is an Excel spreadsheet. By downloading it to your PCs and opening it in Excel, you can use all the features of that programme. The data can be sorted by any column. ‘Auto filter' has been added to the file so that types of data can be selected, such as published guidance, or technology appraisals.
- Download the latest forward planner
- There is now a video tutorial available explaining how to use the forward planner in Windows Media Player and Quick Time format.
The spreadsheet contains the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Status | Whether guidance is published or in development. Can filter to display only published guidance, or guidance in development. |
| Publication date/ Anticipated publication date | Month that guidance was - or will be - published. Where publication date is unknown, usually additional analysis has been requested, or an appeal is in progress. |
| Type of guidance | For example, clinical guideline or technology appraisal |
| Short title | Short descriptive title, instead of full published title. |
| Potential providers affected by the guidance | Which sectors will be affected by the guidance. Can filter to display the guidance for a particular sector. |
| Impacts on payment by results |
Whether guidance impact on either the cost of activity provided under payment by results (PbP) or the levels of activity commissioned.
|
| Funding considerations | Additional comments on the previous column. |
| Related recommendation reminder or commissioning guide produced | Identifies the guidance for which these further tools have been developed. |
| Recurrent costs | Actual (or estimated) recurrent costs for England, in £000. |
| Non-recurrent costs | Actual non-recurrent costs for England, in £000. |
| Support materials produced | Gives details of the implementation support tools produced for this guidance. These columns are hidden but can be unhidden by clicking the + sign above column W |
| Date row last updated | Date entry was last updated. Helps identify what has changed since the forward planner was last downloaded. |
Cost estimates on the forward planner
The forward planner has been updated to include draft costs for guidance that is in development, as well as the costs identified by the costing team for guidance that is already published. This will allow users to plan effectively for the costs, savings and opportunities to re-direct resources that arise from implementing NICE guidance. Prior to publication costs for clinical guidelines and public health are assessed into the following categories based on best information known at the time:
- Cost saving - it is anticipated that net cost is less than £0
- Low cost - it is anticipated that the net cost for England is less than £30 million
- High cost - it is anticipated that the net cost for England is greater than £30 million
Anticipated costs for technology appraisals are initially based on the maximum cost anticipated if the technology received an unqualified yes for the whole patient group referred to in the scope of the appraisal. As more information becomes available - such as publication of the appraisal consultation document then this cost estimate will be refined.
The cost estimates are based on a number of assumptions and provide an indication of the likely impact, but are not absolute figures. When guidance is published a more thorough costing exercise is undertaken and more detailed estimates are provided in the costing tools that accompany the guidance.
Feedback
If you have comments or suggestions for improving the forward planner, please email costing@nice.org.uk.
This page was last updated: 22 May 2013