Back in 2015 when the HFMA Healthcare Costing for Value Institute was launched, value-based healthcare was a relatively unknown concept to many in the NHS finance community.
The NHS is publicly funded – the Department of Health receives its money as part of the Treasury’s spending review process. As this is taxpayers’ money it comes with strings attached – namely that there is an absolute requirement to demonstrate that it is used well and for its intended purpose.
The last 12 to 18 months have seen a deterioration in the financial positions of both providers and commissioners and as such good financial governance has never been so important.
People make partnership working a success but it is important to understand the framework in which all partners are operating. The HFMA has produced guidance to help members decide what are the important questions they must ask when developing new ways of working.
Lord Carter’s report on productivity in acute hospitals provides the platform for individual trusts to understand and act on unwarranted variation across a range of activities. To make a difference, the challenge now is for finance leaders and clinicians to work together to explore the information and create effective solutions.
Understanding the value of patient-level cost data is important for clinicians as well as finance staff, but it has to start with boards.
The NHS provider sector made significant progress in tackling agency spending in 2016/17 but now needs to ‘re-double its efforts’ to reduce spending to a sustainable level, NHS Improvement has said.
The Department of Health group underspent on its revenue budget in 2016/17 by more than £500m, according to its annual report and accounts.
It has been a series of firsts as Bill Shields continues to get to grips with his new role as chief financial officer for Bermuda Hospitals Board. Continuing his series of blogs he reflects on differences in scale and similarities of funding challenges.
What exactly is an accountable care organisation (ACO) or accountable care system (ACS)? Many delegates attending the HFMA Convergence conference in London last week were looking for an answer to this question.
Latest news alerts
Next stages of obesity strategy announced (England)
18 August 2017
Joint information system goes live (Wales)
17 August 2017
HEE outlines additional course funding (England)
15 August 2017
Golden patient productivity improvement
14 August 2017
Little movement in A&E figures (England)
10 August 2017