PLICS (Patient Level Information and Costing System) Guide

One of the NHS England and NHS Improvement reporting requirements is to provide information back to Mental Health Trusts in the form of a Trust Specific Summary Reports which provides a breakdown of activity and costs based on PLICS MH and PLICS IAPT data submitted for each Trust. 

This document provides details of the reports produced by NHS Digital for trusts and how trusts access that report via SEFT, after submitting PLICS MH and/or PLICS IAPT data to NHS Digital.

This guidance document is a supplementary guidance document published by NHS Digital which complements  the NHS England and NHS Improvement Approved Costing Guidance documentation.

The main audience for this guidance document is the submitters of PLICS MH and PLICS IAPT Financial Year 2019/2020 data. 

Report details

Trusts will only see their own data in the report which is compiled based on PLICS MH and/or PLICS IAPT data submitted to NHS Digital.

The file format of the report is Comma Separated Values (CSV) file format.

One report is produced for PLICS MH data submitted and one report is produced for PLICS IAPT data submitted.

The filename of the report for PLICS MH data is defined as: PLICS_MH_Summary_Report_XXX_YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS

The filename of the report for PLICS IAPT data is defined as: PLICS_IAPT_Summary_Report_XXX_YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS

• the ‘XXX’ denotes the Trust Code submitting the data
• the date / time stamp is included to indicate when the report was generated

Reporting criteria

The reports will contain the latest data submitted by each Trust on the basis that this will include data which has passed validation at NHS Digital and has been loaded to NHS Digital systems for processing.

Reporting frequency

The reports will be generated on a daily basis during the PLICS MH and PLICS IAPT submission window for any trust which has submitted or resubmitted PLICS MH and/or PLICS IAPT data.

The reports will normally be accessible the next working day after PLICS data has been submitted to NHS Digital (following the process of loading data to NHS Digital systems has completed).

Any PLICS MH data submitted to NHS Digital after 8pm on the previous working day will not be included in the report.

Any PLICS IAPT data submitted to NHS Digital after 10pm on the previous working day will not be included in the PLICS IAPT summary report.

The reports are date / time stamped to indicate when these were generated.

• PLICS data submitted and loaded up to the date / time recorded in the filename will be included in the report
• any data submitted or loaded after the date / time specified in the filename will be made available in subsequent reports

Where trusts have resubmitted their data to NHS Digital for a particular collection, a further report will be produced and trusts should ensure they select the latest report (by carefully selecting the latest date / time stamp from the filename) to get the most up to date view of the data submitted and loaded.

The report is broken down at Trust Level, ‘Feed Type’, ‘PatCAS, and ‘Cluster’ (where relevant).

The column order of the reports is as shown in the screenshot provided below.

The table below maps the field names in the report to the field names defined in the Mental Health extract file specification where relevant, to illustrate how the report is compiled based on the submitted data. Details of which fields are calculated are also shown.

Within the PLICS MH Summary Report for FY19/20 data, 5 scenarios are considered for erroneous records, as below (XML Field Names used):

When any of the above 5 scenarios are true, the erroneous records are not included for any calculations in the reports.

These records are instead grouped together by OrgSubmittingID, OrgProviderID and FeedType, with their PatCAS and Cluster column values in the report overwritten as ‘ZZ’ to denote that there is invalid data for a specific FeedType from a Trust.  Note that both the PatCAS and Cluster column will be populated with ‘ZZ’ where any of the above 5 scenarios are true.

PLICS IAPT Reporting levels

The report is broken down at Trust Level, ‘Feed Type’, ‘PatCAS, and ‘Cluster’ (where relevant).

The column order of the reports is as shown in the screenshot provided below.

The table below maps the field names in the report to the field names defined in the IAPT extract file specification where relevant, to illustrate how the report is compiled based on the submitted data.  Details of fields which are calculated are also shown.

Within the PLICS IAPT Summary Reports for FY19/20 data, one scenario is considered for erroneous records, as below (XML Field Names used):

• PatCAS = ('02' or '03' or '04') and Cluster is populated

When the above scenario is true, the erroneous records are not included for any calculations in the reports.

These records are instead grouped together by OrgSubmittingID, OrgProviderID and Feedtype, with their PatCAS and Cluster column values in the report overwritten as ‘ZZ’ to denote that there is invalid data for a specific Feedtype from a Trust.  Note that both the PatCAS and Cluster column will be populated with ‘ZZ’ where the above scenario is true.

The Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT) system’s function is to transfer files securely into and out of NHS Digital. This is the same system used to submit your PLICS data.

For further details please see the quick help guide for SEFT users.

Logging on to SEFT

NHS Digital will have issued you a username and password to submit your PLICS data. Please use the same credentials provided to access your PLICS Trust Summary Report.

• Log on to SEFT
• Enter your username and password
• Click on sign on

SEFT dashboard

The SEFT dashboard homepage is where you will see the transfers (downloads) available to you to access

1. Select PLICS_MentalHealth_Trust_Summary_Report (for access to PLICS_MH_Summary_Report_XXX_YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS) or PLICS_IAPT_Trust_Summary_Report (for access to PLICS_IAPT_Summary_Report_XXX_YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS) under the transfer name. 
2. Click on the above transfer name, this will take you to the folder for your organisation
3. Click on the file 
4. An arrow icon will appear at the bottom of the screen 
5. Click on the arrow icon to open the file

You can log in to download the report using a 3rd Party Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) tool rather than the SEFT online Portal.

To log in via a 3rd party tool, in this example WinSCP which is accessible from: https://winscp.net/eng/index.php if not already downloaded to your own computer.

Windows Secure Copy (WinSCP) is an open source free SFTP client for Windows.

Its main function is file transfer between a local and a remote computer.

Please note that if you choose to use a 3rd party tool you will need to generate a Secure Shell (SSH) key pair.

Guidance for this can be obtained by emailing [email protected]

1.    From your start menu select WinSCP

2.    Log on to WinSCP
3.    Enter your username and password – This will be the same username and password used to access SEFT (as supplied by NHS Digital).
4.    Then select Login

5.    You will be able to see your own local drive on the left-hand pane and the transfers available to you on the right-hand pane

6.    Note: In the right-hand pane clicking on the folder with up mark does not take you anywhere, so please ignore this

7.    Clicking on the PLICS_MentalHealth_Trust_Summary_Report or PLICS_IAPT_Trust_Summary_Report transfer takes you into the folder for your organisation

8.     Note: Clicking on the up button takes you back to the previous page

9.    Note: Select and drag the file to the folder of your choice in the left-hand pane

10.    The file is now available to access from your Download folder