The Case Mix Programme (CMP) is an audit of patient outcomes from adult, general critical care units (intensive care and combined intensive care/high dependency units) covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The CMP is included in the NHS England Quality Accounts List, which is overseen by the Health Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP), meaning that it is a national clinical audit that Trusts are recommended to take part in. For more information on the Quality Accounts, see the HQIP website here.
Currently 100% of adult, general critical care units participate in the CMP. Other specialist units, including neurosciences, cardiac and standalone high dependency units, also participate.
The CMP is open to both NHS (publically funded) and independent sector critical care units.
How it works
Critical care units collect data on all the patients they admit to their unit. They securely submit these data and the CMP team run over 600 validation checks, identifying errors and missing information. Units then have a chance to correct and complete the data before analyses.
The unit then receives cumulative Quarterly Quality Reports (QQRs) which show how the unit compares to other units identified as receiving similar types of admissions and all units in the CMP. The reports focus on a set of key potential quality indicators, and identify trends over time, helping the unit to understand more about the care they deliver. The aim is to assist the unit in decision-making, resource allocation and local quality improvement.
The bigger picture
With over 3 million patients in the database, the CMP provides the backbone for several important research studies and is a useful resource for many types of data analysis. We also publish the CMP Annual Quality Report. This publically available report compares the risk-adjusted mortality and key quality indicators at various levels (for critical care units, hospitals and trusts), for the period 1 April to 31 March annually.
Platform X
Platform X is where CMP participating units upload and validate their data.
CMP portal
The CMP portal is used by participating units to download their unit reports and view global reports.