Selecting the right tool for you

Answer the questions below to find out which tool is most relevant to your project. You can only pick one response per question. You may find that more than one tool is suggested.

Tool	Brief description	Who might find this tool useful?	What sort of projects would this tool suit?	Is it prospective or retrospective?	Incorporates an evaluation and Review Cycle? (One-off or cyclical)
Health Equity Assessment Tool (HEAT)	Systematically assesses inequality in relation to a programme of work or service and identifies action needed to rectify inequality.	Commissioning Teams Service Providers	Evaluation of a Service or Programme Pathway Planning	Both	Cyclical
Health Equity Audit (HEA)	Helps to identify whether some groups are under or over-represented when it comes to certain conditions or services.	Commissioning Teams Service Providers	Quality Improvement	Retrospective	Cyclical
Health Impact Assessment (HIA)	Used to evaluate health impacts of policies, services and projects, including indirect impacts on health.	Commissioning Teams Service Providers Policy Makers Local Authority Planners	Planning and Decision Making Service Design	Retrospective	One-off
Intervention Decay Model (IDM)	Systematically uses data to assess the effectiveness of a patient pathway for different groups of the population.	Commissioning Teams	Quality Improvement Pathway Planning Evaluation of a Pathway	Retrospective	One-off but could be used cyclically
Rapid Social Value Assessment (RSVA)	Measures the social, economic and environmental value that result from an activity or project. It focuses on what changes stakeholders experience, and not about the targets you have set.	Commissioning Teams Programme Leads Service Providers Cross-System partners	Evaluation Service Design Planning and Decision Making	Both	One-off