External contributor / Stephen Smallwood

Stephen has over 35 years’ experience of working in NHS Finance and is a CIPFA qualified accountant with several years as a Deputy Finance Director. He has held an interest in staff development for many years and has been actively involved in supporting national and local graduate management training schemes through HFMA and the NHS Leadership Academy since 2002.
Stephen is currently Deputy Finance Director at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS FT and during his NHS career has previously worked in a number of Acute and Community provider organisations. He has also been involved in a number of local, regional and national projects and these experiences have helped him develop a wide knowledge of NHS finance. Stephen is also actively involved in Future Focused Finance (FFF), an NHS-wide programme sponsored by NHS England & NHS Improvement, and is a regional Value Maker for the West Midlands region as well as an assessor for the national FFF accreditation programme.
Stephen has previously benefitted from having access to two mentors at a point in time when he faced a crossroads in his career with his role branching out to include a variety of general management responsibilities. The advice he received was beneficial in charting out the later part of his career.
Stephen is friendly and approachable and gets great satisfaction from helping students to develop their own performance, enabling them to progress in their NHS career.