Comment / Engagement parties?

The election campaign has been running flat out in April and those of us who work in the NHS are taking a particular interest in what the various political leaders have to say. Is it integration or competition? What will happen to system regulation? And how will we bridge the gap in NHS finances?

There’s also been a fair bit of the usual NHS manager bashing,
which I think most of us take fairly philosophically. We know that while it is critically important that clinicians are heavily involved in making financial decisions, the only real route to turning round NHS finances, whatever the outcome of the election, is by strong and effective partnership working between clinicians, managers and finance staff.

It’s one reason I chose ‘Stronger together’ as my theme for the year. And it’s the reason that the ‘Close partnering’ work stream of future-focused finance is so important.

Sanjay Agrawal, a respiratory physician and consultant respiratory intensivist from Leicester, has been leading this work stream from the outset. He is passionate about the need for clinicians to be engaged in the finance agenda, to be financially aware and taking responsibility for the financial consequences of the decisions they make. He wants to build this awareness with clinicians at all levels and extend awareness raising to patients and the public.

The work, which is wholeheartedly endorsed by the six finance leaders on the Finance Leadership Council, seeks to take a national approach that aims to cover every organisation in the NHS. Finance staff from different levels across provider and commissioner organisations have volunteered to be trained as ‘finance educators’ – 80 have already completed their training, with a new round due to start soon.

The plan is for finance educators to cascade training through their organisations so that they can provide access to finance training and education to a wide clinical audience in a variety of locations, taking training to wards and clinical areas if that is what’s required.

The aspiration is that this will also help develop strong relationships between finance and clinical staff, hence the work stream name of ‘Close partnering’.

In some ways this area is not new. The HFMA has been banging the drum for clinical engagement for getting on for a decade. Former HFMA chairman Chris Calkin’s theme in 2007/08 – ‘Influence, connect, engage’ – put a focus on better engagement between finance and clinicians. And when Tony Whitfield in 2013/14 called on us to ‘Know the business’, he again highlighted the importance of engagement between our two key disciplines and the importance of finance understanding the clinical context for their decisions.

We have also seen reports from the (now demised) Audit Commission and joint statements from the HFMA, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the NHS Confederation. And we’ve seen Department of Health-led initiatives.

The current push is not an indictment of these earlier initiatives. Rather it builds on this earlier work. Clinical-financial engagement is an ongoing requirement. As new staff come in, new relationships need to be built and the real goal is to get engagement embedded fully in organisational cultures. The current challenges only make the need for better engagement all the more pressing.

Whatever the easy campaign slogans of politicians, it is not ‘us and them’ – a choice between managers or frontline staff. It is just ‘us’ – clinicians, managers and other disciplines – bringing our skills together to deliver the best possible services for patients. And that is the challenge that will stay with us whichever party or parties make it into government after the election.

Contact the president on [email protected]