HFMA Academy: flexible learning

I talked about the HFMA’s new intermediate diploma back in October. But we’ve had some interest from potential students and their managers in the ability to study individual components of this qualification. In fact, flexibility really is the name of the game with this qualification.

The intermediate diploma is a level 4 qualification that is similar to the first year of undergraduate study. It is aimed typically at Agenda for Change bands 4-6 within the finance function – complementing technical accounting studies and graduate schemes, for example – and outside it. Anyone who could benefit from a better understanding of the fundamentals of NHS finance would get value from this qualification – nurses, junior doctors, budget holders or first line managers, to name just a few.

Studied as a whole qualification, the diploma involves studying a mandatory How finance works in the NHS module (20 credits) and two optional modules (10 credits each) chosen from topics including costing, management skills, governance and transformation tools.

There has been a really positive response to the content in this qualification from potential students and from finance directors wanting to develop their teams or raise financial understanding among other teams.

We’ve fielded a lot of queries about the ability to study the separate sections that make up the diploma – rather than committing to the full diploma from the outset.

This is very definitely an option. And while we are keen to encourage as many as possible to commit to the full diploma, we recognise that signing up to individual sections may suit some individuals or organisations better. So the options are:

·         Full diploma (core module plus two optional modules) – 40 credits

·         Certificate (core module) – 20 credits

·         Award (optional modules) – 10 credits each.

This could drastically cut down the amount of time that people have to commit to upfront. While the full diploma involves an estimated 400 hours of study time, a single optional module should take more like 100 hours. And some people may feel more comfortable taking on that smaller commitment – even if we’d hope it would whet their appetite for the full diploma.

Continuing our flexible approach, we are happy to discuss the potential to run the qualification (diploma, certificate or award) for a cohort of students from the same organisation at a specific point in the year. There are benefits to studying with fellow students from different organisations – seeing different perspective or different challenges.

But there are also advantages to studying alongside colleagues – helping to cement relationships across departmental boundaries and between clinical and support functions and enabling discussions to really focus on how the content applies to the specific local context. We will support what works best for your organisation.

There are even discounts available to organisations putting forward multiple people to study at the same time – whether studying as part of an organisation-specific cohort or as part of the regular national intake. These start at 15% and rise to 25% depending on the numbers of students involved.

We are really excited to get the new diploma under way in January. We will initially be running the core How finance works in the NHS module, with the optional modules being launched a little later into 2019.

As an introductory offer we are providing good discounts on the diploma (reduced from £3,000 to £2,250), certificate (reduced from £1,250 to £850) and award (reduced from £950 to £699) levels of the qualification.

• See hfma.to/qualifications for more information or call 0117 938 8350