Reference Costs are the average cost to the NHS of providing a defined service in a given financial year. NHS Health Care Providers are mandated to provide annual reference cost data (for a wider range of services) to the Department of Health. Reference Costs have been collected annually since 1998.

There are many uses of reference cost data, for example, they are used to underpin the Payment by Results National Tariff, Programme Budgeting analysis and are also used by the NHS to performance manage and benchmark their services.

For further information on Reference Costs, see the Department of Health website.