Comment / Partnership working: no easy option

Since I took up the HFMA presidency in December, the NHS has
been dealing with an unprecedented demand for urgent care. This
has understandably provided a major focus for frontline, support and managerial staff.

The service’s response to these immediate pressures is a perfect example of how the NHS operates. But we also need to ensure we
are making progress towards having the services we need next year and beyond.

With planning guidance published at the end of 2014, finance staff across the country will be engaged in planning for the year ahead. In the current environment, it would be difficult to find an NHS organisation that is finding it easy to put a plan together that delivers on everything required of it.

The balance between delivering quality service standards and financial performance has never before been so hard to agree. Everyone’s telling us to work across organisational boundaries to create transformational plans. But it’s not that easy to switch from a relationship defined by an activity-based contract and a ‘who blinks first’ approach to one based on real partnership and a desire for a win-win.

Yet that is what most finance staff want if the HFMA NHS financial temperature check survey is anything to go by. I’m convinced we can only meet the current challenges by tackling them together – hence my theme for this year, ‘Stronger together’.

We know our options are limited as stand-alone organisations. Even with the new funding agreed for the NHS, the requirement to make substantial savings hasn’t changed. So why do some of us find it so difficult to engage in the type of partnership working that produces real results?

• It’s hard to reinvent yourself and build bridges if past relationships have been poor. Making the first move takes real courage.
• How do you sell the message in your own organisation that actually the other side might have something to say worth listening to? It’s far easier to tell your own board and clinicians that you’re taking a tough stance and sticking to your guns.
• How will you move from the old way of working that everybody is familiar with to a new style that is more innovative and needs real determination to make change? Does everybody understand what the barriers are to change?
• Is there enough information available to support joint planning? Do all parties understand what drives patient activity and how new initiatives will deliver a change in patient behaviour?
• Can we develop enablers that will lessen the pain of transition from one way of delivering service to another?

Finance staff can lead the way in enabling the move to effective partnership working. They can model the open, transparent behaviours needed to make the change. They can work with clinicians within their organisations to support the development of ideas for transformation.

Finance staff can work across organisations to ensure that information is shared and planning assumptions are aligned. They can use their skills and experience to work out the best way to deliver contracts and financial plans that are optimal for the health economy as a whole without leaving an excessive financial burden and a bitter taste for one of the parties. And they can help their organisations to be in as good a place as can be for the future.

 Contact the president on [email protected]