Comment / Building momentum

We hear a lot, particularly in sporting terms about ‘building momentum’.  It’s sometimes difficult to encapsulate what that means, but I guess it’s the confidence fuelled by repeated winning. In HFMA terms, that means the confidence we have as an organisation to move forward and take ground we feel is naturally ours.

Back in early 2011, I sensed a growing feeling in our board that we could build a much stronger organisation that would take us to bigger and better things. And since then we have been putting these things into place. I’m very excited because, midway through this rebuilding, we are seeing real results, with the prospect of much more on the way. In my next few columns, I’d like to share a lot more about this ‘building momentum’ theme that I think characterises this period in our history. It is a recognition that we, as an organisation, can and must do more to develop our profile and services to meet the future needs of our members and stakeholders. And we’re well on the way.

Our recruitment of colleagues on the technical and policy side has led to a greater richness in these areas. Emma Knowles’ work on the finance strand of the seven day services work, which we are managing for NHS England, is a good example of how the HFMA can bring the service together. It is an important piece of work that could lead to real changes in the way health services are organised in England.  

Another example is the costing work we have built up over the last few years under Helen Strain’s leadership. We have exciting plans to develop a Healthcare Costing Institute to shape the future of costing. We have run our first international costing symposium, and we have developed and moulded the costing standards into a live document, while also enhancing the standards for mental health. 

We have also continued to develop momentum in the rest of our technical space – painting the Forth road bridge stuff. A new Introductory guide to NHS finance and numerous briefings and other papers, all produced by our technical hit squad of Anna Green, Sarah Bence and new addition Debbie Paterson. They work very hard to gauge member opinion and turn them out in excellent prose. I couldn’t also complete this piece without praise for our research manager, Richard Edwards, who is working on an exciting range of projects. It’s terrific to have brought together a really first-rate team of experts to support this work.

I’ll be looking next month at our communications output and where we’re going with that. But let me finish by saying this. All the staff I’ve mentioned have reported to me, but from the new year they will have a new boss. I am absolutely delighted that Paul Briddock has agreed to become our policy director. I’ve known Paul for years and he is, in my view, one of the rising stars of NHS finance. The fact that he has chosen to join us says a lot about the exciting place this is going to become and his desire to work for members to shape their profession for the better. I think you’ll agree that this will create significant momentum in the future and is a real game-changer for us. Watch this space!