News / Baumann: managers must play pivotal role

By Seamus Ward

NHS England chief financial officer Paul Baumann has identified a major role for the finance function in the delivery of new chief executive Simon Stevens’ priorities.

He told the HFMA annual commissioning finance conference in June that Mr Stevens had three priorities – sophisticated commissioning, redesign of care delivery and the need to embrace advances in medicine.

Looking at the first priority in detail, he said sophisticated commissioning meant using information to make evidence-based decisions to ‘get more health and care bang for the buck’.

‘We must make NHS real-time information reach the level you would expect from a £100bn industry rather than a cottage industry,’ he said.

The work should be both local and national – for example, at national level, an NHS England project aimed to restore the link between finance and activity.

Redesign of services would not mean a ‘free-for-all where every solution is a good solution’, but would be based on firm evidence.

Equally, decisions on the adoption of medical advances would be based on proof of their power to transform care.

The function faced technical challenges in helping to deliver the priorities, such as understanding costs in detail across health and social care settings.

‘If you don't, then how on earth are you going to make sense of the integration challenge and what its impact might be?’ added Mr Baumann.

‘If you have that data, how do you model the impact of I&E and patient experience if you change services. At the centre, we are just kicking off some work on this and how seven-day services will play into that.’

He continued: ‘We have done enough analysis of the problem – the £30bn or similar figures being reached by others. We should leave aside problem definition and get to work on the solution.

‘Almost everything on the agenda lies right at the heart of the Future-focused finance agenda,’ Mr Baumann added. ‘Simon Stevens is right behind this programme. It has the power to transform the finance operation in the NHS and it is important none of us is left behind in this journey.’