By Vivienne Russell | 3 March 2014
The six most senior finance leaders in the NHS are backing a campaign to consolidate and develop financial management across the health service after the government’s restructure.
The fledgling Future-Focused Finance initiative aims to ensure the NHS finance profession retains its cohesiveness as the organisation grapples with the shift from a single entity to one made up of disparate bodies.
Bob Alexander, finance director at the NHS Trust Development Authority and a member of the NHS Financial Leadership Council steering the strategy, told Public Finance: ‘Those of us who are in oversight positions have got a collective interest in ensuring that the traditional coherence of NHS financial management and NHS finance staff doesn’t get fragmented in the new landscape.’
It was recognised that leaders needed to act ‘collaboratively’ to develop finance staff whether working in foundation trusts, non-foundations, clinical commissioning groups or NHS England, he added.
Alexander’s fellow members of the leadership council are: Paul Baumann, finance director at NHS England; Richard Douglas, finance director general at the Department of Health; Steve Clarke, finance director at Health Education England; Stephen Hay, managing director of provider regulation at Monitor; and Andy Hardy, president of the Healthcare Financial Management Association.
In a letter sent to NHS finance staff, they stated: ‘We know the challenges. Demand is growing. Funding is flatter. The health provision and commissioning landscape is still new. So our colleagues are looking to us to lead and support the changes that need to happen.
‘Future-Focused Finance offers a vision for NHS finance to aspire to over the next five years.’
Alexander, who is also a CIPFA council member, stressed the importance of collaboration, with frontline finance staff actively encouraged to shape the process.
‘We know we haven’t got all the answers and that’s why the engagement and consultation processes are so thoroughly important and real,’ he said.
David Ellcock, programme manager for Future-Focused Finance, told PF that early discussions with NHS staff had elicited positive responses from clinicians as well as leaders.
He said: ‘They’re not trying to push us away to sit in a dark room somewhere and do the numbers. They recognise that finance brings lots of skills to the table. Clinicians say finance people shouldn’t be afraid to engage in decision-making across the board, because when they do it’s very welcome.’
Ellcock added that, although the initiative was scheduled to run to 2018/19, if successful it could go on for longer. Summing up its ambition, he said accountants needed to be more forward-looking.
‘Our people have historically been very good at doing the final accounts and monthly reports on what has happened, but how do we make them better able to predict the future and work with clinical colleagues to understand what decisions taken now will lead to in six, 12 or 18 months’ time?’
