Evidence searches for commissioning

Guidance for this type of search.

Notes

The suggested time to allocate to this search: 4-8 hours.

Please read:

  • "All evidence searches" (see "Quick links") before proceeding
  • and the "Supplement" section for examples of this type of search

Planning

Establish the precise purpose of the search.  Is the requestor:

  • commissioning a new service?
  • decommissioning an old one?
  • redesigning an existing one?

If changes to a service are being made, or a new service is being commissioned, what are they being based on

  • is it related to a government initiative?
  • is the aim to copy best practice from elsewhere (‘do once and share’)?

Establish how sensitive information regarding this search is. For example, if it is about decommissioning, the requester may not wish for the information to be shared or discussed publicly.

Execution

Generally, focus on resources that have economic evaluations or healthcare economics or social return-on-investment (ROI) figures in them, or that report on system-wide impacts.

For economic evaluations

Search :

  • National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
  • NICE’s technology appraisal guidance
  • International HTA database (INAHTA)
  • University of York: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD – note that the DARE, NHSEED and HTA databases are no longer updated).
For social policy related queries

Search:

  • Social Care Institute for Excellence’s (SCIE’s) Social Care Online for social care queries
  • Social Policy & Practice (now available via NHS OpenAthens from Ovid)
  • Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA) (££) if you have a local subscription.
Health business and technology sources

Search these sources and subject-specific sites appropriate to what is being commissioned:

  • independent charities
  • governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
  • think tanks like The Health Foundation, The King's Fund, Nuffield Trust, etc.

See the suggested resources in Health Business and Technology and also Evidence Searching for a Business Case.

If these searches retrieve nothing, search appropriate bibliographic databases, limiting results to the last 5 years and/or preprint servers.

Search Google for key terms

Search Google or other search engines for key terms, or a product’s or manufacturer’s name, or include terms such as:

  • “service models”
  • “service standards”
  • “service specifications”

This can unearth NHS Trust/government sites reporting where similar services have been de/commissioned.

Limit by domain

You may want to search through other NHS organisation policies and publications via an advanced Google search: include “NHS” in your terms, and/or specify your country as UK, and/or limit the search to sites ending with “…nhs.uk” URLs using the limits site:nhs.uk or inurl:nhs.

See "Advanced Google" in "Quick links" within for more information.

Consider an email to mailing lists where KLS colleagues at other Trusts may be able to help, see mailing list enquiries.

Results

Make sure the full text of the results you return are open access, as far as possible, as the requester will likely be sharing the results with a multi-disciplinary (even multi-organisational) team.

For each of your results, provide a top-line summary of what the service cost, what it improved, and what money it saved/brought-in.