Comment / Keeping in touch

In this challenging period, it is vital the HFMA remains at the centre of discussions about the strategic direction of the NHS. Our policy work led by Paul Briddock is much appreciated by the service and last month we launched our Policy and Research Committee – a powerful group of people, including representatives from the Department of Health and arm’s length bodies. We will drive our policy work through this body and we’re looking for members who want to stay in touch by receiving papers and commenting on issues. If you can spare the time, we’d love to hear from you – please email me.

We’ve also had changes at the board of trustees level, as you can see on the news pages of the magazine. We have two vice-presidents – one next in line, the other next but one in line. Mark Orchard had been due to become president in December. However, he has just moved to Poole Hospitals – which we’re all delighted about – so the other trustees, aware of the pressures of a new job, have kindly agreed to postpone Mark’s year as president until 2016/17.

Shahana Khan, our other vice president, has kindly agreed to bring forward her year to 2015/16. I have known both Shahana and Mark for some time, so working with them – in whichever order – is great for me and for the association. We are developing Shahana’s theme for next year and there’ll be something in it for everyone, so watch this space as we start to  gear up for that.

Of course, our current president Sue Lorimer has been out and about and her ‘Stronger together’ workshops have been well received across the country. Many thanks to our partners in the branches for delivering this initiative.

We are also putting more resources into our branch network. Our General Assembly meets in July and it is hoped this will bring our branches right into the association’s operational and policy space.

We are also looking at providing more support to branch staff and branches centrally as we believe that membership is best sold locally. We are keen to deliver stretching targets for membership – we have more than 10,000 affiliate contacts but are also looking to expand the core membership.

I’m really interested in the outputs of a series of focus groups run by former chairman Chris Calkin across the branch network. If you get a chance to go to one, please do – Chris is great at doing these and he gets a lot out of people.

We’ve already had great comments from members, lots good but also some practical suggestions on how we can improve. He’s only done East and West Midlands so far, but more are planned. A big thank you to Chris, who undertakes all of this work for us on a totally voluntary basis.

If you’d rather not wait for the focus group, however, you know where I am.