Webinars about the Unit Costs of Health and Social Care Programme.

Sarah Birch, Helen Weatherly, Karen Jones, Debs Smith, Douglas Findlay.

July 2025

Introduction

The Universities of Kent and York have worked together as part of the Unit Costs of Health and Social Care Programme since 2022, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).  The Programme team also includes 3 Research Advisors as part of the Public Involvement and Engagement team.

Annually, the team publishes an updated Unit Costs Manual and carries out related research. So far, this has included a user survey, a scoping review, a commentary on costing methods, and the creation of an online Unit Costs Adjuster.

As part of the drive to enhance the use of Unit Costs, the team ran a series of webinars. As of January 2026, two webinars have been delivered.  These webinars were aimed at a wide range of users, including academics, health and care professionals, economists, data analysts, students, members of the public, and people from charities and businesses.  The webinars have provided an opportunity to share the work delivered through the Programme, and to learn about what users want and find useful about Unit Costs.

 

Webinar 1 – ‘An Overview of the Unit Costs Programme’ – May 6^th 2025

In this webinar, Karen Jones, Principal Investigator for the Unit Costs Programme at the University of Kent, gave an overview of the Unit Costs Programme, covering its history (1992-2021) and key principles.  Karen explained how a cost is related to the amount (the unit) of something being bought.  With care services, the unit is usually a period of care, for example, 2.5 hours at a day centre or a week in a care home.  For workforce costs, it’s usually the cost per hour of a professional, such as a GP, nurse, or social worker.  These costs include salaries, buildings, equipment, overheads, training and more, using data from sources like the National Cost Collection and the Department of Health and Social Care.

Helen Weatherly, co-lead for the Unit Costs Programme at the University of York, described the current programme (from 2022 onwards) and the various ‘work packages’ that make up the research.  Helen spoke about the scoping review, costing methods, and a stakeholder survey.  She also introduced tools like the Unit Costs Adjuster (the focus of the next webinar) and highlighted how the team explores new services, cost data sources, and methods. Helen highlighted that throughout the work, the Programme’s Research Advisors have shaped the research and the delivery of the Unit Cost Manual.

Sarah Birch, Public Involvement and Engagement Manager at the University of Kent, shared how the Research Advisors contribute to all aspects of the Programme—from meetings and manual reviews to engagement planning and website design. The Research Advisors also highlighted why Unit Costs matter to the public, for example, when thinking about care costs for loved ones or choosing health insurance.

The webinar concluded with a ‘Question and Answer’ session.  Attendees asked about costs for different settings of care (e.g. hospital versus community care), how to adjust for face-to-face versus remote contact, and how Unit Costs relate to programme budgeting and the cost of specific conditions.

The event drew strong interest, with 345 people viewing the event registration page, 134 registrations, and 98 participants joining the webinar, with over 70% of attendees in a researcher, economist or clinician role.

Webinar 2 – ‘An Introduction to the new Unit Costs Adjuster’ – June 5^th 2025

This webinar introduced the newly developed Unit Costs Adjuster.  Karen Jones set the scene by providing an overview of the Unit Costs Programme, followed by Helen Weatherly, who explained why the Adjuster was created and how it was developed. Over time, the Unit Costs have been stored in a master file in Excel for use in populating annual versions of the Unit Costs Manual. The new Adjuster is interactive – users can enter their own data to estimate costs tailored to their needs.

Helen explained how the Adjuster was designed to make cost data more accessible and transparent. It lets users adjust different cost components to suit their interests. Minyue Gao, formerly a Research Fellow at the University of York, gave a live demonstration of the Unit Costs Adjuster, showing users how to search for specific costs and adjust inputs to calculate their own Unit Cost estimates.

In the Q&A session, participants asked about the Unit Costs of private versus public sector services, funding for new data collection, and the ability to calculate comparable Unit Costs across conditions and risk factors.  The webinar had 233 event page views, 124 registrations, and 66 attendees, over 80% from research and clinical backgrounds. The feedback was positive, with participants finding the Adjuster valuable. Webinar attendees suggested adding a glossary of terms, an inflation adjuster, and options for geographic variation in future updates.

Missed the Webinars? Catch-up here!

• Recording of Webinar 1 – ‘An Overview of the Unit Costs Programme’
• Recording of Webinar 2 – ‘An Introduction to the New Unit Costs Adjuster’

Future Engagement – what would you like to hear about?

The Programme team are planning further engagement and would be keen to hear from you about potential content, format and possible audiences.  Due to the low attendance of public members at our webinars, we would like to reach out to interested members of the public about the Unit Costs of Health and Social Care programme.  If you are a member of the public or a research / public advisor, please get in touch about your interest in this – what would you like to know more about, and what’s the best way to do this?

If you have any other feedback, further questions or ideas for future webinars, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Public Involvement and Engagement Manager, Sarah Birch (s.j.birch@kent.ac.uk; 01227 824967).

Acknowledgement

This programme is independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR 203457; Policy Research Programme). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.