Feature / Shaping the future

As the HFMA launches its five-year plan, chief executive Mark Knight outlines how the association is steering itself towards a bright future.

‘Kill Kodak’ is the famous, pithy mission statement attributed to Fuji. The benefits of it, we are told, is that it is short, explicit and to the point. It is also aggressive and, as a commercial company in a highly competitive market, it is only fitting for that type of mission statement to exist, whether implicit or explicit.

You’ll be pleased to know that the HFMA is not looking to hasten the demise of any other professional bodies, nor does it want to pursue commerce in an aggressive manner. However, this is a good opportunity to consider our mission while discussing the association's 2010-2015 strategy.

When discussing our future, we had to consider what our mission statement should be going forward. The phrase we have used for the past five years, ‘The voice of healthcare finance’, may not quite be the Fuji approach, but it’s pithy and clear. So the next question is: are we pithy and clear too? We do speak, but so do others, and the HFMA is not only about speaking and policy, but about so much more.

So we are proposing a new statement – 'Shaping healthcare finance' – which chimes in with the title of our new strategy, Shaping the future 2010-15. This works on so many levels for us that we have already started using it on all our corporate literature.

Our statement of purpose was trickier for us to review because it pretty much captured everything we wanted to say. We have therefore decided to stick with what we have already: ‘HFMA seeks to represent, support and provide high-quality, independent and objective advice to its members and the wider healthcare community. It aims to promote best practice and innovation in financial management and leadership across the UK health economy through its local and national networks. The association aims to respond to national policy and exert influence in shaping the wider healthcare agenda.’

The board is committed to developing the HFMA on all fronts and the above statement very much captures that. We want to continue to provide good-quality services, working for our members and operating on the professional stage.

Another challenge to developing a five-year strategy is the difficulty we face as the NHS moves into more difficult times. This has been a particular problem, calling for successive re-writes throughout the year.

However, now that we have the white paper in England and it is clear the whole UK faces similar financial challenges, we are able to look more constructively at the external environment to plot our course.

There is no doubt gloom prevails. Although the English NHS budget is protected, does that mean the task is any easier? In 2005, when we wrote our last strategy, the NHS was growing and the HFMA with it, so how do we reflect the reality of today?

The Shaping the future strategy recognises that the external environment is tough. Coupled with the prospect of more upheaval, there is currently a greater need for the HFMA than at any time in its 60 years. We are honest about the external environment but we want to unveil a strategy that plots a bright course for the association and its members. We want to continue to develop as an organisation and I believe we will if we understand our market and develop services that people want.

Behind the strategy

I wanted to devote time in this article to letting you know the thinking behind the strategy. The practical parts relate to five key strands:

• Realising benefit and supporting members
• Increasing influence through the development of policy and technical work
• Meeting learning and development needs
• Supporting devolved nations and branches
• Building the infrastructure.

The number one objective in our new strategy is helping members and ensuring we demonstrate value to the membership, the NHS and the public in general. Obviously public benefit is important for us as we are a registered charity. But more than that we want to be of benefit to all three groups because it is the right thing to do. 

The second strand concerns the development of policy and technical work. The strategy requires us to consider an influencing plan each year so you know what we are working on. We also want to develop our international footprint as we continue to search for those nuggets of good practice that other health economies can help us with.

The third aim is learning and development and at the heart of that is e-learning. I am delighted with how that has contributed to the association and we see a bright future for it. It ticks all the boxes because you don’t have to travel to do it and it is relatively inexpensive.

Learning is very much core business for us and  we see a number of opportunities in this area as well as developing existing formats such as our ever-popular annual conference.

Branches are at the heart of this association as they provide the link with membership locally. Over the past 10 years we have seen them flourish and there is more work for them to do. Keeping contact with local members is important and I want to focus more attention on how the branches and centre work in tandem.

Of particular interest are the three home nation branches. We know how hard other professional bodies struggle to represent their ‘devolved nations’, so I think it is to our own Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches' credit that they are able to develop initiatives for their members. We want to continue this work and hope to be looking at research into different policy responses in the future.

Finally, our focus on building the infrastructure looks at two aspects: the internal financing and governance of the HFMA and the development of our commercial services.

The latter is easy to explain. We want to develop HCS Ltd, our trading subsidiary, so that it provides excellent services to organisations and real value to the bottom line of the HFMA. To do this the newly formed Commercial Advisory Board is working hard to develop areas where it might invest. We are appointing commercial advisers to help us as well as identifying new markets.

Financial picture

In terms of finance and governance we are looking to increase our deep reserve over the next five years on our June 2009 level.

We are probably already ahead of target in this area, taking our 2009/10 results into account, although we are looking to use a portion of our reserves to fund our programme to support members.

While the association does receive some income from NHS sources, it is heavily dependent on its commercial activities, including income from sponsors.

We believe that the NHS market will be greatly constrained, but with sponsors still investing we want to look at that side to generate more revenue.

Given that we have staff and other financial responsibilities, this is a prudent target – no more than that – and we are committed to providing good value to the service.

The other issue we want to explore is whether the HFMA should consider establishing a presence in London. While we are committed to our Bristol base, the development of a London facility might have practical advantages for meetings and events and help in influencing terms.

I am delighted we have completed Shaping the Future 2010-15 and want to thank the hundreds of people who have helped critique it at committee and branch level. I believe it offers a bright and realistic hope for the future and I hope you will join me in making it happen.

Shaping the future 2010-15 can be found here

Leadership team

Sue Jacques and Tony Whitfield have been nominated by the HFMA board to become vice presidents of the association starting in December.

The move to elect two vice presidents instead of one was agreed at last year’s annual general meeting. It aims to increase the support for the president during his/her year in office, spreading what has been a growing workload in recent years and improving the HFMA’s succession planning.

Current vice president Suzanne Tracey, director of finance and business development at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, is due to become HFMA president for 2010/11, taking up her role at December’s annual conference. Once ratified as vice presidents by the AGM, Ms Jacques would become president in December 2011, followed by Mr Whitfield in December 2012.

The vice presidents will take on specific responsibilities with the association’s Education, Training and Member Services Committee and its Commercial Advisory Board.

Ms Jacques, a former HFMA Finance Director of the Year, is currently director of finance and chief operating officer at County Durham and Darlington NHS FT. Mr Whitfield, who chairs the HFMA’s costing committee which is overseeing the development of the NHS clinical costing standards, is deputy chief executive and director of finance at Salford Royal NHS FT.