Comment / If at first....

Horse riding is a passion that I’ve enjoyed since I was a child. I’m never happier than when I’m dressed in my jodhpurs and on horseback. And I am still honing my equestrian skills having recently enjoyed a lesson in showjumping from Nicola Wilson – one of the silver medal-winning Olympic eventing team. 

Horses are extremely intelligent and sensitive creatures and the partnership between horse and rider is one that is built on trust and confidence. Now, I’m going to let you into a bit of a secret. Despite my more than 30 years in the saddle, I managed a spectacular fall during that lesson – a fall that caused my legs to go wobbly and my mouth dry. But horsey types don’t do wimpy, and before I’d managed to stagger to my feet, Nicola had insisted that I hopped back on and tried the combination of jumps again. There was no way she was going to let my setback get the better of me.

One could be forgiven for an erosion of confidence in the economy given the weak economic growth announced recently. This was underpinned by the slumps in corporation tax and weaker than expected VAT receipts that dealt a blow to George Osborne’s deficit reduction plans, as it emerged that in October the government had borrowed significantly more than it had planned.

For the NHS, this makes the likelihood of anything better than a flat real-terms settlement over the next five years or more a near impossibility. But that’s not really anything new. For a long time now we’ve recognised that we’ll need to deliver more and better with less to play our part in the recovery of UK PLC. We also know that to do so will require a different approach to that of recent years. Innovation and transformation are the order of the day.  So how can NHS finance professionals help?

Well, for a start, it is incumbent upon us to build confidence and trust with our clinical colleagues and the population at large that the agenda is manageable. Innovation and transformation will be essential. But using structured models and approaches, we can help to design new pathways and work across different organisations to develop commitment and energy for change.

These pathways can be built on technologies that will drive efficiency and improve the quality of the services that we deliver and the experience of our patients. Robust quality impact assessments can ensure we avoid any unintended consequences of cost improvement plans, while strong management of those plans can ensure delivery.

Delivering what we’ve said we’ll do has become the hallmark of NHS finance in recent years and it is in these more challenging times that we can come into our own.

So if like me you experience any setbacks, please think of Nicola and pick yourself up (metaphorically speaking) and have another go.

This is my last column as president of HFMA and during the course of the past 12 months I have met many of you as I have travelled the length and breadth of the country. You’ve achieved so much over the year and made a real difference to the NHS. And I have every confidence that you’ll go on to do so again in the year to come and wish you well in those endeavours.

Contact the president [email protected]