Comment / Joint venture benefits

I wrote this article on the day before one of the most historic democratic moments in the history of the UK – the Scottish referendum. This was also the day after I attended the fantastic
East Midlands Branch conference entitled ‘Getting better together’.  

So, sandwiched between two days on which the theme of working together was being considered in two very different ways, it got me thinking about how this theme can apply to the NHS. In fact, how it needs to apply if we are to face the many significant and complex challenges ahead. 

The NHS – and the broader but connected social care sector – is a partnership of wide-ranging frontline practitioners and back-office support. All have a role to play. But leadership will be key to harnessing these skills and ensuring that we all pull in the same direction to deliver the best possible services to patients within the available resources.

As a result of my presidential year of ‘leading by numbers’, you won’t be surprised to hear that I believe finance teams have to be front and centre in taking up this leadership role.

In a sector that is positively humming with buzz words, three have established themselves as being here for the long haul: integration, collaboration and joint working. But how far have we moved beyond talking up these key success factors and actually started to deliver? How many real opportunities to collaborate do we miss by focusing on the needs of our own individual organisations? 

Collaboration can seem scary, raising issues of future uncertainty. But given the complexity of the environment we are currently in, the size of the financial challenge and the rightfully ever-increasing expectations of our patients, we simply cannot ignore the need to join up and ‘be better together’. Inefficiency lies in the gaps between services run as silos. To be effective and efficient, pathways of care need to appear seamless to patients. And that means we need to work across primary, secondary, tertiary and social care. Too often, finance or financial incentives have been quoted as a reason why such discussions cannot take place or as the obstacle to progress. Our challenge is to smash these often ‘false’ financial obstacles.

I have talked previously in this column about the challenges that the better care fund will present. Of course some of these challenges are real and significant, but we in the finance community have the skills to turn them into opportunities.

We need to see the positives, work through the difficulties and come together with financial professionals across the health sector and in social care to break down barriers and make both the services and the numbers work together. 

This is a real opportunity for us to lead by numbers and we, as finance professionals, can certainly do better for the patients we serve by working better together.

Contact the president on [email protected]