Rebuilding costing from the ground up at Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 

Read more Customer Stories
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides acute and specialist healthcare services to a population of around 450,000 people across West Cheshire and surrounding areas. The Trust operates the Countess of Chester Hospital alongside a range of community services, delivering care across both hospital and local settings. Like many NHS organisations, it faces increasing financial and operational pressures, alongside the need to improve efficiency and support high-quality patient care.  

Starting from ‘page one’

When Paula Jones Calkin joined Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2022, the costing function was effectively starting from scratch. 

There was no usable historical data, no handover from the previous role, and the position itself had been vacant for several months. At the same time, the Trust was undergoing a period of significant transformation, including the introduction of a new patient administration system and the formation of a new data warehouse team. 

Previous costing submissions had been limited to high-level reference costs, rather than full National Cost Collection (NCC) returns. This created a clear risk of non-compliance and meant the Trust lacked reliable, granular insights to support decision-making.  

In Paula’s words:

“It was really ‘page one’ for us. There was no data, no handover, and nothing to build on. We had to rebuild costing completely from scratch.”
Paula Jones Calkin

Paula Jones Calkin

Costing & Performance Accountant

Experience the platform first hand.

Would you like to turn your data into better healthcare?

Request a demo

A full rebuild with LOGEX support

Given the absence of legacy systems, the Trust made the decision to rebuild its costing approach from the ground up. 

LOGEX provided the technology platform and specialist support needed to help rebuild the costing service. Working in partnership with LOGEX consultants, the Trust developed a robust costing model aligned to national standards and established sustainable processes for ongoing National Cost Collection submissions. 

Beyond providing a costing solution, LOGEX worked closely with the Trust to support capability building, knowledge transfer, and the development of a sustainable approach to costing. This partnership helped ensure the Trust could not only meet immediate reporting requirements but also establish a strong foundation for future financial and operational decision-making. 

“In those early days, it was a lot of learning and knowledge transfer. The support from our dedicated LOGEX consultant helped us get to a point where we’re now much more self‑sufficient.”
Paula Jones Calkin

Paula Jones Calkin

Costing & Performance Accountant

From spreadsheets to actionable insights

Initially, service-level financial information was distributed via static spreadsheets, providing a basic profit and loss view for each service. 

With LOGEX, the Trust has transitioned to a more interactive and flexible approach. The platform enables teams to: 

  • Drill down into service-level performance 

  • Analyse patient-level cost drivers 

  • Compare activity and costs against benchmarks 

  • Explore variation across specialties and cohorts 

This shift has begun to move costing from a reporting exercise to a tool for insight and discussion.  

Early impact: compliance, confidence and cost opportunities

Within a relatively short period, the Trust established a compliant NCC submission process, despite starting from a position of limited data and no established model.  

Governance and the use of costing information have improved, reflected in higher scores in both NHS England’s Costing Assessment Tool and internal assessments, as costing outputs are shared more widely across the organisation. 

While engagement with clinicians and operational teams is still developing, the introduction of SLR has created a new foundation for conversations. For the first time, services can begin to understand their income, costs and overall financial position. 

Even at this early stage, costing insights are already identifying tangible opportunities. For example, benchmarking analysis highlighted that the Trust was paying more than peers for specific cardiac devices. This insight is now informing procurement discussions, demonstrating how detailed costing can uncover practical savings opportunities. 

Building a culture of informed decision-making

The longer-term ambition is to embed costing more deeply across the organisation. 

This includes: 

  • Expanding routine SLR reporting to more services 

  • Enabling service managers to manage their areas as individual business units 

  • Increasing visibility of costing insights through dashboards and internal platforms 

  • Supporting clinicians and operational leaders with more granular, accessible data 

There is already growing interest from clinical teams, particularly as more information becomes available and more detailed analysis can be shared.

A journey still in progress

The work at Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is ongoing, but the progress to date reflects a significant shift: from having no usable costing function to establishing a structured, compliant and increasingly insight-driven approach. 

“It’s very much a work in progress, but we now have the foundations in place. From here, it’s about building on that and embedding costing across the organisation.”
Paula Jones Calkin

Paula Jones Calkin

Costing & Performance Accountant

Read more customer stories

Get clarity and control to make better decisions.

Do you have any questions about harnessing data-driven insights for better financial analytics or seek advice? Allow our experts, such as Sarah, to lead the way.

We will reply within two business days.

Speak to an expertRequest a demo
_DSF3228-1