Evidence-based interventions

17 interventions have been identified and placed into 2 groups:

Interventions that should not be routinely commissioned

There are 4 interventions that should not be routinely commissioned. Patients should only able to access such treatments where they successfully make an individual funding request (Category 1 interventions).

These are:

• adult snoring surgery (A_snoring)
• dilation and curettage for heavy menstrual bleeding (B_menstr_D&C)
• knee arthroscopy with osteoarthritis (C_knee_arth)
• injections for nonspecific low back pain without sciatica (D_low_back_pain_in)

Interventions that should be commissioned

There are 13 further interventions that should be commissioned or performed when specific criteria are met (Category 2 interventions). The full list is found in “Evidence-Based Interventions: Guidance for CCGs”.

SUS+ will identify Category 1 only and will add 2 new columns to APC spells and full online extracts (and their “plus” equivalents). The columns are:

• Evidence Based Intervention Category
• Evidence Based Intervention Type
  • A_snoring
  • B_menstr_D&C
  • C_knee_arth
  • D_low_back_pain_inj

It is anticipated in future years these columns will be used to identify further categories.

Payment for Category 1 is dependent on individual funding requests (which do not flow to SUS+). SUS+ will therefore continue to price this activity.

The clinical codes for the full algorithm used by SUS+ are found in the guidance “Evidence-Based Interventions: Guidance for CCGs”.