News / HFMA launches 2016 awards programme

The categories include Costing, Accounts Team, Governance and Innovation, as well as the Havelock Training and the Finance Director and Deputy Finance Director of the Year awards.

The Working with Finance – Clinician of the Year Award, now in its 10th year, completes the line-up. Initially this was given to organisations for their work on clinical engagement. But since 2009 it has sought to recognise an individual clinician who has taken financial responsibility for their services, led efficiency or improvement programmes or provided an example for other clinicians by engaging with the financial management agenda.

Phil Thomas, a consultant urologist at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, who won the award in 2010, urged clinicians with a track record of financial engagement to enter.

Mr Thomas became the trust’s first clinical chief of finance in 2008 and is stepping down to concentrate on his clinical duties. The trust is advertising for a successor.

‘You are not really recognised in this role and people don’t really understand it, so it was nice to get national recognition for me and the finance team I worked with,’ he said. Clinical-financial engagement was tricky, but could make a difference, he added.

The deadline for entries is 30 September and for the first time entries can be submitted through an online portal. The software allows you to save your submission at any point and return to it later; edit your entry after it is submitted, up until the deadline; download a copy; and use the ‘copy’ feature when entering multiple categories.

A shortlist for each category will be published at the end of October. The winners will be announced at the gala awards ceremony on 8 December, during the HFMA annual conference.

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