Comment / New starts

By Mark Knight

As you read this, the NHS in England is a few days into its new structure, with new roles and bodies at both the local and national level. It has been a herculean task on the part of those involved and I am indebted to those in the new organisations who have been able to give us time to talk about the new changes. 

As I have said before, we now have four main seats of power to engage with – NHS England (the rebranded Commissioning Board), the NHS Trust Development Authority, the Department of Health and Monitor. 

Finance remains at the centre of everything and I hope we can support and help these bodies to get started. In recognition of the creation of so many new organisations (mainly clinical commissioning groups), the HFMA has expanded its awards to include a one-off Best Start-Up Award. More details about this and the existing awards will emerge shortly.

There’s a lot more going on in the association following our strategic review, which I alluded to last time. Work has started on 110 Rochester Row, our new conference centre in London. It will be an excellent facility where we can not only host meetings but also generate income by letting it out. This will be an important step forward in the life of the association. 

We are currently recruiting a conference team to run the place, starting with the conference manager. We also have a new face in our technical team, Debbie Paterson, who is an acknowledged expert on financial reporting matters and someone who has spoken widely for us when she was working for PricewaterhouseCoopers. We also have some new faces in our faculty structure, with growth being demonstrated in our Chair, NED and Lay and Commissioning Faculties.

The Acute healthcare clinical costing standards were launched in tandem with, and as an integral part of, Monitor’s Approved costing guidance, which also incorporated the Department of Health’s reference cost collection guidance. We are also close to publishing the mental health standards.

We plan to continue developing the costing standards and are talking to Monitor about how this work integrates with the regulator’s own costing work to support its joint pricing role with NHS England. We also identify a major need for an education programme to support costing and greater opportunities for practitioners to network and share good practice. With this in mind we are exploring the possibility of setting up a Healthcare Costing Institute, which could deliver services and support on a range of different levels. We believe the HFMA has a major contribution to make in the area of costing and is best placed to lead on much of this important agenda. I would like to thank my colleagues Helen Strain and Steve Brown for their good work so far.

We are also considering developing three other groups. The first is a new Specialised Services Special Interest Group. We have a lot of interest already but there is room for a few more respresentatives from relevant organisations – both on the commissioning and provider sides. A possible Care Co-ordination Group would draw on the work we are doing with Net.Orange around the important issue of integrating care. Finally, we are considering a Members in Practice group to support those who work for themselves. We are keen to hear your thoughts on the proposals.