Friday 24 January

Projects

We have undertaken work for pan-governmental institutions, UK government departments, regional and local government groupings, individual public sector organisations, private investor groups, charities, established companies and start-up businesses.

Services

We have successfully completed over 200 projects ranging from small rapid reviews, to larger, process review, change and delivery assignments in both the domestic and international markets.

Collaboration

Crystal Blue collaborates with academic institutions, other consultancy groups and professional organisations both internationally and across the UK to ensure we provide our clients with the best support and most up to date research findings.

Welcome

Crystal Blue is a network-based consultancy firm led by directors Tessa and John Crilly that has been providing high quality economic and financial consultancy to public and private sector clients for over 15 years.

The NHS Reforms and Efficiency Savings: An Early Assessment of Impact on Cancer Services in England

Client: Cancer Research UK
Lead contractor: Health Services Management Centre, Birmingham University

Description
As part of the project “An evaluation of the impact of NHS reforms and efficiency savings on cancer services in England” we provided three separate analytical reports (1) A Review of Cancer Patient Pathway Datasets, (2) A Review of Expenditure on Cancer Services and (3) A Review of Cancer and Diagnostic Test Waiting Times

In the first report we mapped out the various sources of data and described how these are gradually being consolidated by the National Cancer Intelligence Network into the National Cancer Data Repository. The second report analysed the NHS programme budgets across the period 2007/08 to 2010/11. This analysis revealed a slowing in the real rate of growth of the overall budget but a consistent proportional allocation to cancer services. The final report found that overall there has been an improvement in cancer waiting times with adverse quarterly movements more attributable to externalities than to policy shifts. Waiting times in imaging experienced some decline but appear to be returning to normal levels while the deterioration in waiting times for endoscopic investigationshave not yet shown signs of a recovery.

Services provided
Research, data analysis, presentations and report writing.

Highlights
We provided the client with a number of simple indicators that can be used to monitor the service provision going forward.

Model available:
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/publicpolicy/ourpolicypositions/treatment/nhs-reforms/