Feature / Mission: finance

The Future-focused finance initiative is gaining momentum as finance departments draw up plans to deliver its three themes. Seamus Ward reports

For some it’s about honing their services and making sure they are relevant or understanding what clinicians do. Others feel it has given them a renewed sense of purpose. But one thing is clear: many finance departments are buzzing with ideas and projects as Future-focused finance (FFF) begins to gain traction.

As they pursue the three FFF themes and six action areas, finance teams are asking questions. What does good look like? How do we get there? And who’s going to lead it?

FFF head of technical and professional development David Ellcock is delighted with the way that FFF has taken off. ‘Since our 10 regional workshops concluded, we have seen the website reach 1,000 registrations; we have more than 600 followers on Twitter; more than 100 finance directors have signed the declaration; and over 40 organisations applied for the 20 places that we had available in the ‘great place to work’ pilot scheme. 

‘We need to press on now to ensure that we reach as many of the 15,000 finance staff in the NHS as possible, so that FFF can begin to make a difference – for them, for those they work with to deliver services and for the patients and communities that use those services.’

Early signatories

Pioneers include Devon Partnership NHS Trust, where director of finance Sarah Brampton was an early signatory of the finance director declaration. She has ensured her finance team had time to talk through the six action points and three themes (see box). This allowed the team to match local issues, with actions and ideas, to the three themes.

On an individual level, her team has used the six action points to develop a new personal development plan form. This asks questions such as what an individual needs to do to achieve their goals, what ‘great’ looks like in their role, what they need to do to get there and who is going to help them.

Rather than waiting for their next appraisal, Ms Brampton hopes to roll these out to all members of her finance team within three months. ‘We have also been encouraging staff to visit the FFF website to look at other people’s ideas and to think about how we could use them as part of a team or as an individual. And we have encouraged them to be part of local and national working groups. It feels like it’s really taken hold here,’ she says.

FFF recently announced 20 pilot sites for the ‘great place to work’ action area, including NHS England (Shropshire and Staffordshire Area Team). Finance director Ros Francké says it applied to be a pilot because it offered a chance to build and develop her team.

The first year of the new commissioning structure has been hectic and team development and cohesion has, perhaps, taken a back seat with the focus on other tasks, such as helping establish national systems and processes. ‘This has meant we haven’t had as much time as we would like to focus on the team,’ she says.

‘Great place to work’ gives them a rallying point over the next year. ‘We are refreshing the objectives we set for the first 12 months, with team development objectives informed by “great place to work”.’

Ms Francké, who is hoping to become an FFF value maker, says the securing excellence theme, expecially the best value work, is another aspect of FFF that is important to her. She is talking to colleagues in Staffordshire County Council about developing the generic competencies needed by public sector finance officers.

She explains they are looking at the relative training schemes, seeing where they overlap and discussing whether a training scheme could be developed to enhance understanding of integrated finance. FFF organisers insist it should not be a one-off meeting or discussion – it must become part of the fabric of finance teams. Devon Partnership is committed to discussing FFF at a monthly meeting, bringing in team member ideas and those from other organisations. One of its FFF initiatives aims to ensure all members of the finance team has a mentor. ‘I have committed to doing this in my finance director declaration,’ says Ms Brampton.

The step has been taken to increase equity of access to support and training. ‘It may not sound that radical, but mentors are usually only for senior finance staff at band 8 and above. We have a database not just of people within the organisation but also colleagues in neighbouring trusts willing to be mentors.’

Local schemes

Some finance departments had put in place a local FFF-style initiative before the national scheme was launched. The finance team at Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, for example, developed its own vision in 2013, which identifies key principles and stakeholders throughout the county.

Everyone in the team has signed the vision document. The trust ended 2013/14 with a higher than planned surplus and has scored a Monitor finance risk rating of 3 every year since it became a foundation trust in 2011.

The finance team has won internal accolades and has been accredited by CIMA at its highest level – for supporting excellence in lifelong professional development – CIPFA and ACCA.

The trust’s executive director of finance Claire Wright has signed the FFF finance director declaration and has committed to embedding the three themes in her team.

‘The key principles of “securing excellence”, “knowing the business” and “fulfilling our potential” align perfectly with the department’s own motto and ways of working,’ says trust corporate finance manager Kay Jones.

‘The finance team is ensuring it invests time in its people by encouraging the team to proactively visit services and understand the organisation to build on our successes to date in supporting the trust to deliver high quality patient care,’ she adds. ‘It has a finance team that is proud to be championing FFF.’

The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust also had an FFF-style initiative before the national scheme launched. Deputy director of finance Mike Burns says its initiative, ‘the Walton finance way’, was launched in 2013 as a means of ensuring the finance department was delivering what its customers wanted, ultimately to the benefit of patients.

‘We looked at our organisational objectives and did a SWOT analysis of the department. We were honest in our approach and asked senior managers how they thought we were performing, what they’d like to see from finance – if we send them information in a certain format, is it useful, do they use it?’

The finance department spent up to 10 months getting its changes in place and it is committed to going back to stakeholders in six months to see if improvements have been made. Mr Burns says the finance department initiated some practical schemes, such as more self-service tools. ’Sometimes people see finance as being a type of secret society, but we want to be more transparent. We also carried out customer service training in the department – it’s really important both for how staff relate to external customers and how they treat each other in the department.’

The finance department was restructured to align with the divisional structure. Mr Burns adds: ‘We now have two to three protected days a week where management accountants work in a division, looking at problems, opportunities, business case support and more focused cost improvement plan support.

‘We have had to shift the finance department from the back office and now have it out there in the organisation. Our intention is to achieve our overall aim of being seen as delivering beyond the bottom line to all our customers.’

One of the Walton objectives was to have an article about its strategy published in Healthcare Finance. FFF across the country may be in its infancy, but in this respect at least, mission accomplished.