An extraordinary year

It’s that time of year again as we approach the HFMA annual conference. But instead of the physical conference this year, we have the ’12 days of conference’ – an online festival of learning.

As I write ahead of the event, more than 150 organisations and 3,000 delegates are registered, easily eclipsing our record attendance of 777 in 2014. It is a real demonstration of the spirit in the NHS finance function, because not only will it be a substantial commitment to continuing professional development, but it shows solid support for the association. Thank you to all who have made the decision to be at the event and to all our commercial friends, who are sponsoring sessions and taking part in the exhibition.

While we won’t be together in the same room, it is a powerful thing to be able to enable so many people to take part. It makes me wonder about how that will affect professional development going forward.

Some aspects of the pandemic have been truly upsetting – relatives not able to be with dying loved ones, millions not seeing their families. For us, in our world, not going to branch and national conferences has meant we are unable to meet colleagues in sister organisations. You miss those little corners where you can pass on information and share intelligence. It’s the same with not attending the office regularly – you miss those moments of chemistry between colleagues.

But it hasn’t been all bad. While I don’t feel I’m leading an organisation some days because I’m on Teams in my front room, I have also benefited from not travelling so much and having the flexibility that being at home offers.

This suggests long-term benefits to some of the responses we have made to Covid. Why not offer more streaming opportunities to our events? In the past, we’ve not looked at that much because we’ve worried about attendance. But I think the sheer numbers we have reached this year suggest there’s a place for both.

We know that, when given the opportunity, many will still want to travel to events just for the enhanced benefits of being together. On that basis, we’re looking at building more streaming facilities at 110 Rochester Row, as that fully reopens in the new year. And we are exploring investments in equipment and training in using cameras to live-stream out. This will enable us to adapt our business model in a post-Covid world.

We will also be looking into how our whole offering and services move forward over a range of areas. We hope that in the first months of 2021 we will see a substantial part of the vulnerable population vaccinated, and that this will lead to a near return to normal life.

For the association, in common with lots of different services, I get the feeling that things will change for us forever. We will be delighted to see the end of constraints on our freedoms, but we will be looking to retain those aspects that have worked well.

I’d like to thank everyone who has enabled the HFMA to move forward in this year, be they staff, volunteers or supporters. Without this team effort, we couldn’t have achieved what we have done. I’m looking forward to the virtual conference. It’s a monster, running over 12 days. And we will do our very best to round off what has been an extraordinary year.