Finance Department
Job Description
Title: / Head of Income and Costing
Grade: / Band 8C
Hours of Duty: / 37.5 hours per week
Annual Leave: / 27 days per annum increasing to 33 days after 10 years NHS service
Terms & Conditions
of service: / Agenda for Change
Department: / Finance
Accountable to: / Director of Contracting and Business Development
Responsible for: / Costing and Commissioning team
Member of the Senior Finance Team
Whittington Health NHS Trust
Whittington Health provides general hospital and community services to 500,000 people living in Islington and Haringey as well as other London boroughs including Barnet, Enfield and Camden. The organisation was established in April 2011 following the merger of The Whittington Hospital NHS Trust with NHS Islington and NHS Haringey community health services.
We have an income of £281m and more than 4,000 staff delivering care across North London in The Whittington Hospital and from 30 locations in Islington and Haringey. As one organisation providing both hospital and community services, we are known as an “integrated care organisation”.
This means we can bring high quality services closer to home and speed up communication between community and hospital services, improving our patients’ experience particularly for those who need different levels of care.
Key to our approach is partnering with patients, carers, GPs, social care, mental health and other healthcare providers.
We have a strong reputation for safe care, for two years consistently having one of the lowest death rates in England, one of the key criteria for measuring patient safety.
Our organisation also has a highly-regarded educational role, teaching more than 600 undergraduate medical students, nurses and therapists throughout the year, and providing a range of educational packages for postgraduate doctors and other healthcare professionals.
Job Summary
The post holder will be a key part of the trust’s senior finance team and will manage the costing and commissioning teams.
The post holder will be responsible for all income reporting for the Trust, both internally and externally.
Key relationships include
Internal
  • financial management team,
  • contracting team
  • senior clinicians
  • operational managers
  • executive team
External
  • CCG / CSU
  • Local Authority
  • Health Education England
  • TDA

Main duties

Income Reporting

  1. To take overall responsibility for the reporting of income on a monthly and annual basis, supporting the Head of Financial Planning and Analysis and Deputy Director of Finance in the completion of monthly finance reports, external monitoring and annual accounts.
  1. Closely work with the Heads of Finance of the Divisions to help them understand their divisional income positions. Ensure that income is devolved correctly for all service lines.
  1. To ensure that systems and processes are in place for the timely recovery of income; and to ensure the effectiveness of the monitoring system which tracks all validation queries raised by CCGs, ensuringthat queries are promptly cleared, by the team, in order to minimise the risk to the Trust’s income.
  1. To participate in year-end procedures and national initiatives in accordance with best practice and set time-tables.

Financial Planning

  1. To support the Head of Financial Planning and Analysis, Deputy Director of Finance and Director of Finance in the management of the budget setting process, taking the lead in the development and ongoing maintenance of income plans, whilst ensuring plans are realistic and consistent with agreed SLAs where specific agreements are in place.
  1. To assist in the development of a strategy for service line management, in conjunction with operational managers, clinical staff and other finance staff.

Contracting

  1. To develop appropriate financial support to the service agreement process including variable cost behaviour modelling.
  1. To support and advise the Head of Financial Planning and Analysis, DeputyDirector of Finance and Director of Financetogether with senior non-Finance staff as well as the Head of Contracting of the impact of changes to the NHS financial funding regime, currently Payment by Results.
  1. To be responsible for ensuring the accurate and timely production of costed activity proposals for SLA negotiations with CCGs and to participate in the negotiation process, working with the Head of Financial Planning and Analysis, DeputyDirector of Finance and Director of Finance to ensure appropriate financial support for the process.
  1. To ensure all supporting SLA information is provided, by the team, in accordance with the requirements of the national contract and strict deadlines.
  1. Support the Director of Contracting, Deputy Director of Finance and Director of Finance in developing innovative contract solutions for new integrated care services between acute and community services that ensure the right clinical incentives are supported by aligned financial incentives.
  1. Regularly liaise with commissioners and represent the Trust at technical meetings.

Costing

  1. To be responsible for developing costing and pricing mechanisms within the Trust. This will include developing and implementing the appropriate costing models to deliver the costing and activity information currently required for statutory returns, Payment by Results, reference costs, local planning and decision making e.g. support to HRGs/patient-level costs.
  1. To take the lead in the further development and implementation of the Trust’spatient-level costing system, improving upon current reporting and further developing trading accounts for the Trust where appropriate.

Team Management

  1. To plan the work of the team such as to deliver routine work according to timetables, balanced with ad-hoc/urgent requirements when relevant and to instigate and deliver improvements in ways of working as appropriate.
  1. To set objectives for team members, in line with Corporate objectives, and to carry out appraisals on an ongoing basis.
  1. To manage staffing of the team within available budget.

Other

  1. To provide training as appropriate, across the Trust (to finance and non-finance staff) on subjects such as patient-level costing and the implications of changes to the NHS funding regime.
  1. To participate in the ongoing training & development of finance staff, including development and delivery of training sessions on specific financial topics as well as on the job training for team members.
  1. To provide financial advice, interpretation & support in terms of the Trust’s Private Patient activity, including ongoing development of tariffs taking account of market conditions and the Foundation Trust financial regime.
  1. To undertake specific expenditure analysis, value for money, business cases and benchmarking projects as specified by the Deputy Director of Finance.
  1. As a qualified accountant, to actively participate in the registered Accountancy body’s CPD scheme.
  1. To keep up to date with developments in terms of the NHS financial regime, Foundation Trust regime and International Accounting Standards / Practice.
  1. To be fully aware of Standing Orders, Standing Financial Instructions, the Trust’s scheme of delegation, financial procedures & policies and to provide advice and guidance as appropriate to staff within the directorate or elsewhere in the organisation.

Please also supply an organisational chart indicating posts two levels above and two levels below this post - if this has not been provided previously.

This job profile is intended to provide an outline of the duties and responsibilities of this post and may change from time to time by agreement of the Manager and the postholder.

Following consultation post holders may be required to do other duties commensurate with their grade and experience for short periods of time.

HEALTH & SAFETY

Employees must be aware of the responsibilities placed on them under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, to ensure that the agreed safety procedures are carried out to maintain a safe environment for employees and visitors.

SECURITY

It is the responsibility of all employees to work within the security policies and procedures of the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust to protect the patients, staff and visitors and the property of the Trust. This duty applies to the specific work area of the individual and the Hospital in general. All staff are required to wear official identification badges.

DATA PROTECTION

This post has a confidential aspect. If you are required to obtain, process and/or use information held on a computer or word processor you should do 'It in a fair and lawful way’. You should hold data only for the specific registered purpose and not use or disclose it in any way incompatible with such a purpose and ought to disclose data only to authorised persons or organisations as instructed. Breaches of confidence in relation to data will result in disciplinary action which may involve dismissal.

NO SMOKING

The Hospital has promoted a No Smoking Policy as part of its responsibility for the provision of health. You will be required to work within the framework of this policy. Smoking is not permitted in offices.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

It is the aim of the Trust to ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less than favourable treatment on grounds of sex, marital status, race, colour, creed, religion, physical disability, mental health, learning difficulty, age or sexual orientation and is not placed at a disadvantage by conditions or requirements that cannot be shown to be justifiable. To this end the Trust has an equal opportunities policy and it is for each

employee to contribute to its success.

CONFIDENTIALITY

You are required to maintain confidentiality of any information concerning patients which you have access to or may be given in the course of your work, in accordance with current policy on confidentiality in the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust.

METHOD OF PAYMENT

Payment of salary is made into bank account/building society account by direct bank system. Details of a bank account or building society account will be required on the first day at work. There is no facility for any form of other payment.

CUSTOMER AWARENESS

The WhittingtonHospital expects its employees to communicate with colleagues, patients and visitors in a polite and courteous manner at all times.

patients and visitors in a polite and courteous manner at all times.

Person Specification

Head of Costing and Commissioning

Essential / Desirable
Qualifications / Education /
  • CCAB Qualified
  • CPD up to date
/
  • Masters degree
/ Application
Previous Experience /
  • Experience in a complex NHS or private sector organisation
/ Interview
References
Knowledge and Experience /
  • Excellent Knowledge of Payment by Results (PbR)
  • Expert knowledge of NHS costing, including delivery of annual reference costs
  • Knowledge and understanding of the patient level costing and service line reporting agenda within the NHS, including understanding the influence these policies have on the management of the trust as a business.
  • Understanding and experience of strategic and business planning.
  • Knowledge and experience of performance management techniques.
  • Experience of budget setting
  • Experience of contracting
/ Project Management Experience / Application
Interview
Skills / Aptitudes /
  • Excellent communication skills both verbally and in writing. Able to present highly complex financial information to non finance staff including directors.
  • Excellent presentation skills
  • Strong sense of quality, being able to lead by example
  • Good listener – able to understand the issues and needs of others
  • Achiever – makes things happen
  • Persuader – good interpersonal skills
  • Highly developed analytical skills – able to review complex processes and recommend appropriate changes to improve efficiency.
  • Able to analyse complex financial information to identify areas requiring further investigation.
  • Strong staff management and development skills
/ Interview
References

1