What does the Strasys Value Index measure?

SVI measures how effectively an NHS trust delivers good healthcare at an affordable cost. It brings three dimensions into a single view: quality (including mortality and readmission), cost (including care setting appropriateness), and equity (adjusted for the population the trust actually serves). The output is a peer-benchmarked position, together with the specific indicators that drive it.

How does SVI differ from NHS Model Hospital, Reference Costs, or GIRFT?

Model Hospital, Reference Costs, and GIRFT each illuminate one part of the value picture. Model Hospital focuses on productivity and finance benchmarking, Reference Costs on unit cost comparisons, and GIRFT on specialty-level clinical variation. SVI brings quality, cost, and equity into a single view, adjusted for population need. It complements these tools rather than replacing them, and is designed to give boards a single strategic lens.

Where does the £8bn trapped value figure come from?

The figure is Strasys's own estimate of value lost across the NHS due to friction between misaligned services, inefficient care settings, and variation in clinical productivity. It is derived from applying the SVI framework across publicly available NHS trust data and aggregating the gap between current and peer-benchmarked performance. It is an indicative system-level figure. SVI's purpose is to show where a specific trust's share sits.

How do you equity-adjust the data?

SVI uses standard NHS data on population need and deprivation to adjust peer comparisons. The aim is to compare a trust against meaningful peers serving comparable populations, rather than against a raw national average that ignores context. Full methodological detail is shared with clients during engagement. The public-facing figure is always the equity-adjusted position.

What data do we need to provide from our trust?

SVI is built on publicly available NHS data, including NHS Digital, Hospital Episode Statistics, SHMI, and referral-to-treatment returns. For the core index, no patient-level data is needed from the individual trust. Where clients want to extend the index into local operating detail, additional data can be added under the trust's own governance arrangements.

Can specialist or smaller trusts be meaningfully benchmarked using SVI?

Yes. SVI's peer grouping adjusts for case-mix and population, so specialist and smaller trusts are compared against peers operating in similar conditions, not against a mean-acute average. Specialist context is the hardest to benchmark fairly, so the peer set is reviewed with the trust before the index is produced.

A Strasys DI Platform Solution

Every NHS trust is asked to deliver more for less. SVI shows where the value is sitting.

The NHS measures activity constantly. It rarely measures value. The Strasys Value Index brings quality, cost, and equity into a single view, adjusted for population need and benchmarked against meaningful peers. The aim is a board conversation grounded in evidence, not in averages.

The Strasys Value Index is the benchmarking layer of our Decision Intelligence Platform.

Evidence base

Publicly available NHS data. No patient data required from the trust.

Peer-adjusted

Case-mix and equity-aware, so specialist and smaller trusts are compared fairly.

Board-ready

Structured for the board agenda, not for a methodology conference.

See how SVI works Book a briefing

What You Get

Four artefacts your board can take into its next meeting.

Every SVI engagement produces these four outputs. They are designed to inform strategic decisions, not to generate further analysis.

Your trust's value position

Where your trust sits on quality, cost, and equity in a single benchmarked view. The specific indicators that drive the position, and the movements that explain the trend.

Trapped value quantified

The financial value leaking through misaligned services, wrong care settings, and clinical variation. Identified, sized, and located in the parts of the organisation where a board can act.

Peer comparison that holds up

Equity-adjusted and case-mix-aware, so a specialist or smaller trust is compared against peers operating in similar conditions, rather than against a raw national average that flatters neither.

A board-ready briefing pack

The evidence structured for the board agenda. Usable as the opening slide, the full paper, or the handout for the NED pre-read, without reformatting.

The SVI Approach

A structural view of value, built from the data that is already there.

Publicly available data only

The index draws on NHS Digital, Hospital Episode Statistics, SHMI, referral-to-treatment returns, and equivalent sources. For the core index, no patient-level data is required from the trust.

Equity-Adjusted Benchmarking

The index accounts for the population each trust actually serves, including deprivation and case-mix. The aim is that specialist and smaller trusts are benchmarked against peers operating in similar conditions, not against a raw national average.

Quality, cost, and equity in one view

Most benchmarks measure one of these at a time. SVI brings them into the same frame, because a trust that hits every quality target while losing money per patient treated has not delivered value, and a trust that cuts cost by reducing equity has shifted the problem rather than solved it.

Designed for board decisions

Built to inform strategic direction, not to win a methodology argument. The output answers the questions a board is already asking, and locates the evidence in the part of the organisation where it can be acted on.

The Three Dimensions

SVI brings quality, cost, and equity into the same frame. What each dimension actually looks at is set out below.

Quality

Clinical and experiential outcomes

Standardised mortality ratios, emergency readmission rates, time-to-treatment against referral standards, and patient experience measures. Drawn from SHMI, HES, RTT and equivalent national sources.

Cost

Productivity, adjusted for case-mix

Reference cost position, care-setting mix, and productivity benchmarked against trusts with comparable clinical complexity. The question being answered is whether the trust is getting the value it should from what it spends.

Equity

Fair comparison against relevant peers

Deprivation weighting, population-need indexing, and case-mix adjustment. Specialist and smaller trusts are benchmarked against peers operating in similar conditions, not against a raw national average.

SVI in Action

The £8bn trapped value opportunity in the NHS.

Mark Jennings walks through the SVI analysis behind the headline figure. The data shows a pattern the system often suspects but rarely names: the 13 largest acute trusts, each over £1.5bn in annual operating expenditure, deliver lower productivity than the 104 smaller ones. Mark explains the methodology, shows where the gap sits, and discusses what the pattern means for boards thinking about focus and future operating models.

Presented by

Mark Jennings, Chief Solutions and Services Officer

Coming Soon

SIA for Value. Interrogate your trust's value position.

SIA (Strasys Intelligence Agent) is coming to the Strasys Value Index. Ask questions like "Where are we spending most per adjusted admission compared to peers?" or "Which specialties are driving our cost position?" and get AI-generated answers grounded in your trust's SVI data. The same conversational AI that powers MIA in the Strasys Maternity Index, where it is already live.

Ask questions in natural language

Understand why the index is moving

Locate trapped value by specialty

Compare against peer trusts

Already live as MIA in the Strasys Maternity Index

CFO Voice

"The Strasys Value Index is an innovative use of publicly available data that can provide real insight and challenge to Trust Boards. SVI analysis has helped our Board to understand the Trust's performance from the top strategic level down to some specific areas for improvement."

Claire Liddy

Chief Financial Officer, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Impact Stories

Where value thinking has informed board decisions.

See all impact stories

Impact Story

SVI in the boardroom at Mid Cheshire Hospitals.

How a CFO used the Strasys Value Index to move her Board's performance conversation from top-line strategy to specific, actionable areas for improvement.

Webinar

How Decision Intelligence helps leaders improve quality and performance.

A webinar on how value thinking, applied to publicly available NHS data, changes what boards see and what they act on.

SVI is one solution in the full Strasys Decision Intelligence Platform.

See how value benchmarking connects to Consumer Needs Segmentation, Six Business Models, workforce, maternity, and board governance across the SMASH methodology.

Built for the leaders responsible for value and direction.

CFOs and Finance Directors

Build a value case the board can defend in scrutiny. Quality, cost, and equity in one evidence base, not three disconnected conversations.

Chief Strategy Officers

Translate performance data into strategic direction. Where the trust sits, where it is moving, and which shifts will release the most value.

ICB Finance Leads

Value across the system, with provider comparisons the ICB can actually use. Equity-adjusted, so the conversation with providers is grounded rather than defensive.

NEDs and Board Chairs

An independent benchmark to bring into the boardroom. Built on publicly available data, so it can be challenged, shared, and tested in the open.

In Context

The NHS value tools you already use each answer a specific question. SVI brings the answers into one view.

Tool category	What it answers	SVI also helps you answer	Quality, cost, and equity in one view?
NHS Model Hospital	How does our productivity and finance position compare to peers?	Where that position sits against quality and equity, in a single frame.	No
Reference Costs and unit cost data	How do our unit costs compare, line by line?	Whether the cost position reflects value delivered, or cost cut at the expense of quality or equity.	No
GIRFT specialty reports	Where is clinical variation concentrated in a given specialty?	How specialty-level variation aggregates into a whole-trust value position for the board.	Partial
NHS RightCare	Where does population-level commissioning variation sit?	How provider-level value performance relates to the population you commission for.	Partial
Internal finance BI and dashboards	Any finance or performance question leadership asks on demand.	The whole-trust value pattern across quality, cost, and equity, triangulated in one analytical frame.	No
Strasys Value Index Strasys	Where is this trust's value, across quality, cost, and equity, adjusted for the population it serves?	All of the above, integrated, in one board-ready frame.	Yes

SVI is the integration layer. It connects the public NHS data your existing tools already use, across productivity, cost, clinical variation, and population, into a single equity-adjusted view your board can act on.

How It Connects

The value delivered by the operating model you designed.

Consumer Needs Segmentation shows you who the trust actually serves. Six Business Models shows you how care should be organised to serve them. The Strasys Value Index shows you the value produced by that choice, benchmarked against peers.

Step 01

Consumer Needs Segmentation

Your patient population segmented by needs, behaviours, and acuity. The demand side of the evidence base.

Step 02

Six Business Models

The operating architecture that reconciles patient demand and workforce supply into a coherent model of care.

Step 03

Strasys Value Index

The value produced by the operating model, benchmarked across quality, cost, and equity. The measurement layer that closes the loop.

The Strasys Decision Intelligence Platform

FAQ

Questions we are asked.

: SVI measures how effectively an NHS trust delivers good healthcare at an affordable cost. It brings three dimensions into a single view: quality (including mortality and readmission), cost (including care setting appropriateness), and equity (adjusted for the population the trust actually serves). The output is a peer-benchmarked position, together with the specific indicators that drive it.
: Model Hospital, Reference Costs, and GIRFT each illuminate one part of the value picture. Model Hospital focuses on productivity and finance benchmarking, Reference Costs on unit cost comparisons, and GIRFT on specialty-level clinical variation. SVI brings quality, cost, and equity into a single view, adjusted for population need. It complements these tools rather than replacing them, and is designed to give boards a single strategic lens.
: The figure is Strasys's own estimate of value lost across the NHS due to friction between misaligned services, inefficient care settings, and variation in clinical productivity. It is derived from applying the SVI framework across publicly available NHS trust data and aggregating the gap between current and peer-benchmarked performance. It is an indicative system-level figure. SVI's purpose is to show where a specific trust's share sits.
: SVI uses standard NHS data on population need and deprivation to adjust peer comparisons. The aim is to compare a trust against meaningful peers serving comparable populations, rather than against a raw national average that ignores context. Full methodological detail is shared with clients during engagement. The public-facing figure is always the equity-adjusted position.
: SVI is built on publicly available NHS data, including NHS Digital, Hospital Episode Statistics, SHMI, and referral-to-treatment returns. For the core index, no patient-level data is needed from the individual trust. Where clients want to extend the index into local operating detail, additional data can be added under the trust's own governance arrangements.
: Yes. SVI's peer grouping adjusts for case-mix and population, so specialist and smaller trusts are compared against peers operating in similar conditions, not against a mean-acute average. Specialist context is the hardest to benchmark fairly, so the peer set is reviewed with the trust before the index is produced.
: SIA (Strasys Intelligence Agent) for Value is an upcoming AI agent that will let leaders ask natural language questions of their trust's SVI data. Questions like "Where are we spending most per adjusted admission compared to peers?" return AI-generated answers grounded in the index. SIA is already live in maternity as MIA in the Strasys Maternity Index.

Where does your trust sit on value?

A briefing walks through how SVI would read your trust, what peer group it would place you in, and which parts of the value picture are most likely to move in the next 12 months.

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