Comment / Membership matters

The HFMA board met in April to discuss the current and future direction of the association. The key items on the agenda were the development of a new five-year strategic plan, agreeing the budget for next financial year (our year runs from July to June) and reviewing existing work.

On the first of these, the strategic plan, I am delighted to say that the HFMA isn’t far away from unveiling details of the vision between 2010 and 2015. And what an interesting time to be charting that vision! Whatever the outcome of the general election, we know that tough public spending decisions will have an impact on health. So while the tone of our strategy will be positive and forward looking, there is a steely realism in our analysis of the future health market.

There will be more detail on the strategy in the coming months, but, for the purposes of this column, it broadly includes: realising benefit, developing policy and technical work, meeting learning and development needs, supporting the devolved nations and branches and building the infrastructure. We have put ‘benefit’ at the top of the list because we see developing services for our members as vital.

We also recognise two other important areas. First, we are concerned with the benefit we offer the NHS, be it policy input or resources we produce. We want to continue to help the service and provide top-quality information on finance issues that is well referenced and relevant.

The second area we need to address is the wider one of public benefit, which we must do as part of our registration with the Charity Commission. We believe we can easily demonstrate the benefit the HFMA offers to wider society with the development of more web resources that the public and academic community can tap into.

Getting NHS finance staff to join the organisation is, of course, very important to us. We don’t cover the full cost of membership through subscriptions; it is largely subsidised by other activities. The key point is that we want a large association to be able to demonstrate our strength in depth and solidarity, but also to widen our network and provide more opportunities for members to meet people.

We have just completed a membership survey that has revealed very high (95% plus) levels of satisfaction among members over the value they get from their subs. Although I am delighted by this statistic, I am not going to get complacent over the issue. The reality is that over the next 12 to 18 months, the HFMA will have to work hard to retain its membership and develop new initiatives to help those affected by the downturn. Those initiatives are yet to be put in place, but the board is very keen for us to ‘be there’ in whatever form we can.

April and May usually see many new members joining and this should be no exception in 2010. Once again, can I ask you to tell a colleague about the HFMA and encourage them to join. We want everyone in the tent – and it’s free until the end of June.