Developed by The Casemix Service, Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs) are standard groupings of clinically similar treatments which use common levels of healthcare resource.

Healthcare Resource Groups offer ORGANISATIONS the ability to understand their ACTIVITY in terms of the types of PATIENTS they care for and the treatments they undertake. They enable the comparison of ACTIVITY within and between different ORGANISATIONS and provide an opportunity to benchmark treatments and services to support trend analysis over time.

Healthcare Resource Groups are currently used as a means of determining fair and equitable reimbursement for care services delivered by Health Care Providers. Their use as consistent 'units of currency' supports standardised healthcare commissioning across the NHS. They improve the flow of finances within - and sometimes beyond - the NHS. HRG4 has been in use for Reference Costs since April 2007 (for financial year 2006/7 onwards) and for Payment by Results (PbR) since April 2009 (for financial year 2009 onwards).

HRG4 was a major revision that introduced Healthcare Resource Groups to new clinical areas, to support the Department of Health's policy of Payment by Results. It includes a portfolio of new and updated HRG groupings that accurately record PATIENTS treatment to reflect current practice and anticipated trends in healthcare.

For further information on Healthcare Resource Groups, see The NHS Information Centre for health and social care website.

This supporting information is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
shortname	HRG
plural	Healthcare Resource Groups
fullname	HRGs