Unit Costs of Health and Social Care 2023 Manual

Knowing the cost of specific health and social care services is crucial information for making decisions about what support is provided to those who need help, assisting service providers to plan for the future of their services, and more generally for allocating scarce resources and budgets. To support resourcing decisions, the Unit Cost Programme has been carried out by the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Kent. They produced the annual cost estimates for the delivery of health and social care services for 29 years. Lesley Curtis, a Senior Research Fellow at PSSRU led the Unit Costs of Health and Social Care programme, alongside Jennifer Beecham, Ann Netten and Amanda Burns. In 2020, Karen Jones, Co-Director of PSSRU, led the programme for two years.

The annual publication is freely available online. The work is underpinned by three key principles:

1. The provision of robust, consistent estimates of costs based on economic theory and reflecting the long-run marginal opportunity cost.

2. Comprehensive coverage of available health and social care services, reflective of new service developments.

3. Clarity and accessibility in the presentation of cost estimates.

The annual volume included nationally-applicable costs for around 80 health and adult social care services (NHS, local authority, private and voluntary) as well as at least three articles by academics and practitioners each year. Unit costs represents the total expenditure incurred to produce one unit of output in health and social care. For example, the cost of one hour of a nurse or GP’s time, or a face-to-face appointment with a social worker or perhaps a speech therapist. It could also be a week in a residential care or nursing home or the cost of a day care attendance.

The consistency, comprehensiveness and robustness of what was produced over time has seen the volumes become a cornerstone of economic evaluations and a resource to inform deliberations among decision-makers.