Value Maker Annual Conference 2019Best Practice Market Stalls

value makers

IntroductionThe Value Maker role was introduced to create a network of passionate individuals across the NHS who champion and spread the work and messages of Future-Focused Finance (FFF). Members of our now well-established network connect using a wide range of forums, sharing best practice, resources and ideas while working on many of the projects within FFF.

A Value Maker is someone who is committed to making a difference and who is passionate about the power of finance in supporting the delivery of excellence in patient care. Value Makers are driven, innovative, energetic, and enthusiastic with great communication skills - utilising different media. Most of all they are passionate about NHS Finance and the development of finance staff and teams.

We aim to have a network of active Value Makers in every region, supported by regional networks with a regional lead, and to support each other in this role through regular events. The Value Maker Annual Conference is the one time in the year that we all come together from across the country to celebrate being Value Makers and to share what we do best from across our networks.

The Value Maker Annual Conference 2019 took place on 20 September and saw nearly 200 NHS finance professionals

come to London for a day of learning, sharing best practice and networking. To make the day as interactive as possible a large part of the agenda consisted of ‘best practice market stalls’, where attendees heard about FFF’s latest and upcoming work, as well as innovative ideas and projects from different NHS organisations.

Included in this document are write-ups of some of the excellent work and projects that were showcased on the day. We hope you find this a useful and practical aid to introducing new ideas within your own organisation, and that, by sharing it, you will inspire and encourage others to join our fabulous Value Maker network.

Suzanne Robinson Director of Finance, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust SRO for Value Makers

Contents00 Introduction

04 Engaging with Clinicians David Berridge, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Medical Director Operations, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

05 Step into ELHT FinanceEast Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust Finance Department

06 Systems Maturity Toolkit Derek Stewart, Associate Director of Finance - Financial Services, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

09 Workplace WellbeingLeela Hunt, Service Development Officer and Beccy Willis, Head of Governance, SIRO and Data Protection Officer and Emergency Planner, NHS Southampton CCG

10 Our Journey to Outstanding #GHFTCountMeInRobert Neale, Senior Service Improvement Accountant; Johanna Niehues, Programme Manager; Josh Penston, Finance PMO Admin; and Hayley Summers, Programme Facilitator, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

12 Continual ImprovementWrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS FT Finance Department

14 Show me the moneyMegan Cromby, Stephanie Owens and Jing Ma, Liverpool Heart and Chest NHS Foundation Trust

17 CCG Network showcaseNatalie Fletcher, Head of Finance, NHS Vale of York CCG

18 Apprenticeship LevyGavin Rush, Costing and Contracts Assistant, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Th market-stall outlined how finance professionals and clinicians can help each other to fully understand clinical issues and the most efficient and economical way of providing that clinical care.

A good start to any engaging with clinicians is professional respect and remembering that the centre of the clinical world is the patient. Whilst having to manage budgets, finance staff need to be willing to respect clinical preference and the specialist knowledge that goes into patient treatment. In return clinicians need to understand that finance can help lead the organisation in delivering a balanced budget, ensuring the trust remains in surplus with the consequent increased capital provision for innovation and much needed equipment.

Cost and financial pressures are everywhere. The NHS is fraught with organisations trying to make cost improvements; however, if you talk to clinicians about saving 30p on each single patient use tourniquet by changing brand then the push back will be,” Why are you talking to me about saving 30p? I have greater problems.” However, if you changed the conversation to, “If we switch from Brand A to Brand B we will save £90,000 per year and that will fund at least 2 nurses on your ward or the piece of equipment you want,” this discussion of the potential benefits of the change will help to achieve clinical engagement.

Often the subject of changing a product is the source of contention, especially when working with surgical colleagues.

If products are being changed by the procurement team, then a successful changeover can be facilitated by splitting products into three groups and having three responses:

▪ Range of Products by Group ▪ Expected Change ▪ Products that are exactly the same ▪ Change to this product is expected ▪ Products that are completely different ▪ Keep using the old product ▪ Products where there is a similarity ▪ Trial the product and feedback the results

By taking the approach above finance and procurement staff are beginning to show an understanding of the clinical world and change is no longer about what is financially the best but what is the best use of resources, whilst also being the best for the patient. Presenting information to clinical staff in an understandable format, based around their needs will enable all parties to have informed discussions on the way forward. For example, comparing the surgical cost data of several surgeons carrying out the same procedure and then discussing outcomes will have more benefit than simply stating the average cost of a procedure across a specialty.

Furthermore, the greater the depth to which the data can be interrogated the greater the faith clinicians will have in the information. This information can then be discussed by the clinical – financial team to achieve consensus and progress.

In short, respect the clinicians and support their patient focus; engage and educate them about how you can help them achieve their goals by talking about waste reduction as opposed to cost improvement; and refer to savings in terms of nursing staff or equipment potentials, not simply money saved.

Engaging with Clinicians

Step into ELHT Finance

David Berridge is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer - Medical Director Operations at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He received the HFMA Clinician of the Year Award in 2018 for his work promoting Scan4Safety and also leading the Trust’s review of non-pay expenditure in operating theatres. David is instrumental in ensuring that Finance staff and Clinicians across the Trust work together to help deliver the best patient care on an affordable basis and to deliver the Trust’s vision of being the best in the country for specialist and integrated care.

Over the past 12 years, East Lancashire Hospitals Trusts (ELHT) Finance Department has taken on 12 Apprentices, 10 of whom are still employed within the department.

The department has strived to continuously improve the training and experience provided to the team as a whole, including monthly knowledge and training sessions and annual team away days.

Last year we took this a step further. Working with the ELHT Careers Department we began to take on work experience students from local colleges, along with placements from The Prince’s Trust.

We have accommodated 12 students on one-week work experience placements over the last year. Students are given an insight into NHS Finance, along with information on the different career paths and study routes available to them should they take up a career in NHS Finance.

Our department has also been involved in The Prince’s Trust programme, taking on two young people on placement

throughout the Trust. The programme offers 18-30-year-olds a four-week placement within a chosen department and is aimed at people who may not have had an opportunity to overcome barriers and enter into sustainable employment.

We take seriously the importance of training and nurturing the future NHS Finance professionals and believe that giving these opportunities to the local population is of vital importance to help us achieve this.

We have a number of case studies from people who have taken part in the programme throughout different departments in the Trust that show how the placements have helped them. They can be found on the FFF website here: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/blog/step-elht-finance

David Berridge, Deputy Chief Medical Officer - Medical Director Operations, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust Finance Department

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FFF SYSTEMS MATURITY TOOLKITDerek Stewart, Associate Director of Finance - Financial Services, Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

The aims of this session were to: ▪ increase awareness of FFF’s Systems

Maturity Toolkit;

▪ identify further opportunities for benchmarking and good practice sharing opportunities; and

▪ identify further organisations who would like to get involved in the working group.

The optimal scores for each of the modules are highlighted, where this is identified in red these are currently outsourced services. In these cases, you would expect these to be higher scores in providing these functions as the shared business provider can obtain economies of scale and have expertise in developing these specific functions.

The supplementary information allows an opportunity to share good practice in ledger and system developments including specific modules such as collaborative planning, PLICS/ SLR, capital asset registers and provide comparison between organisations within STP’s or with similar types of organisations such as acute ((DGH) or large acute (teaching) hospitals.

Completion of the toolkit is online and as such there is currently no simple output which can be utilised for discussions with organisations. The initial reviews are being undertaken for Capital

Accounting and Treasury and a template has been developed which includes:

▪ Summary answers from organisations who have completed the detailed module on the website.

▪ Summary system details from organisations who have completed the module.

▪ The questions and answers from the organisations with an opportunity to add your notes from discussions with your lead for the module.

▪ A summary of the module and benchmark metrics to be included by organisation lead.

The templates are linked at the bottom of this article and further information and full instructions are included within the capital template.

Developing the benchmarking furtherWe currently have a small working group who are reviewing how we can better use the output of the model and how we can supplement this information to allow us to effectively better benchmark the information and allow us to share good practice in a number of key financial areas.

The group currently includes Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust (DGH Acute Trust), South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust (Large Acute – Teaching), Greater Manchester Shared Services (CSU), North East London NHS Foundation Trust (Mental Health / Community) and Public Health England (Arms’-Length Body).

Following discussions, we have added the following information to the base information included on the website:

▪ Identify the type of organisation. ▪ Scored each of the questions – this allows a % score for

each module for comparison. ▪ Developed a template to complete for each module to

allow further discussion in a conference call, this includes all questions and answers and different organisations can be plotted on this for comparison.

▪ Provide supplementary information such as ledger, stand-alone systems, automated system processes, outsources and provided services including expenses and payroll.

For the organisations participating we have the following initial summary:

Organisation name: Northampton General Hospital (NGH)

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Greater Manchester Shared Services

North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NEL)

Public Health England (PHE)

Organisation Type: Acute DGH Large Acute - Teaching Hospital

CSU Mental Health / Community (45%:55%)

Arms Length Body

Procure to Pay 72% 84% 79% 68% 65%Activity to Cash 70% 73% Not Completed 62% 70%Business Partnering 66% 60% Not Completed 68% 64%Capital Expenditure 71% 57% Not Completed 80% 77%Plan to Deliver 64% 65% Not Completed 69% 55%Finance Department 65% 65% Not Completed 55% 60%Hire to Retire 64% 65% Not Completed 68% 72%Record to Report 72% 89% Not Completed 81% 69%Treasury 66% 68% 70% 73% 66%

Completion of the online toolkitThe FFF Systems Maturity Model is a benchmarking tool looking at how well-developed financial systems are in an organisation. The Model has been created to enable you to see which aspects of your organisation’s finance processes and systems are performing well in the nine areas and which could be developed to improve the efficiency of your team. By focusing on improving those areas which are less efficient you will free up staff time and allow your staff to spend more time working in those aspects that add value to the organisation.

The model can be accessed on the FFF website and you’ll also need to register a lead with the FFF central team to log into this, but the modules can be allocated to different leads to complete the modules within your structure.

Once you complete the individual modules you’ll receive an output metric and on completion of all modules and benchmark metrics input you’ll receive a global benchmarking summary.

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The finance global design principlesThis was shared in discussions with the Public Health England lead in relation to developing the toolkit and was published in February 2019:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/finance-global-design-principles

The Finance Global Design Principles are a set of common processes and procedures, which are used by core government departments and their arms’-length bodies (ALBs), to ensure consistency across government and facilitate greater sharing of expertise.

The Finance Global Design Principles have been developed for 12 areas of the finance taxonomy, to promote convergence and best practice across government; Purchase to Pay, Order to Cash, Cash Management, Grants Administration, Payroll, Expenses, Inventory, Investment Appraisal, Project Accounting, Record to Report, Tax, Non-Current Assets (bold are shared models also in the FFF toolkit).

These principles:

▪ are based on leading practice from the public and private sectors;

▪ have been developed collaboratively with colleagues across government departments and special interest groups;

▪ are “system agnostic” (i.e. do not depend on a specific system);

▪ are mandatory for all core government departments.

A tool is provided for entities to self-assess their compliance against the Finance Global Design Principles.

This handbook looks excellent and incorporates process maps for a number of useful areas. There is also an Excel document for each of the areas and these are significantly more detailed for each module than the FFF toolkit.

We will complete the Cash Management and Non-Current Assets module for the Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust and determine how useful it is and whether this can be tailored for wider NHS use.

The FFF Efficiency, Value and Technology Steering Group can then determine whether this model can be transferred for health use.

You can access the Systems Maturity Toolkit on the FFF website here: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/systems-maturity-model

Resources shared at the market stall included:

▪ Presentation from the session - https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Systems%20Maturity%20Toolkit%20Presentation.pptx

▪ Summary of the Inputs & Outputs: Online Toolkit - https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Handout%20for%20VM%20Conference%20-%20Toolkit%20-%20Inputs%20%26%20Outputs.docx

▪ Templates developed for Capital Accounting & Treasury - https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Capital%20Accounting%20Module%20-%20With%20Instructions.pptx

Workplace Wellbeing

Southampton City CCG’s Wellbeing at Work best practice stall aimed to provide details of the wellbeing agenda developed by the CCG over the past 18 months. We wanted to provide some visual images of the activities, campaigns and ideas that the CCG has created, along with some of the props, tools and aids to improving wellbeing.

The stall was run by two of the CCG’s wellbeing champions who described Southampton’s wellbeing journey to conference delegates, from its inception to current day. The talk included some of the challenges and how to potentially overcome them. Delegates were then offered the opportunity to ask questions and share work that is taking place in their organisations in an effort to share best practice.

Southampton CCG has a plethora of ideas which were shared with delegates, including interactive wellbeing walls, where, dependent on the theme, people can share happy memories, log how they are feeling, learn more about mental health conditions or take part in a step challenge. Other activities include lunch time ‘wiggle and giggle’ sessions, meditation, positive lifestyle groups, away day speakers, a fortnightly newsletter and seasonal themed events.

Ultimately, what Southampton City CCG has seen is that promoting the wellbeing agenda has helped to bring people together. It’s very common for individuals in offices to not know the person sitting opposite them. Wellbeing activities, even if it’s stopping to look at what the latest wall display is and having a conversation with someone you don’t know, can make a workplace fell like more of a community, instead of a building full of random people. It helps build support and compassion and reduces feelings of isolation at work. The

CCG recommends not just sticking to national campaigns, but to get creative, ask people in the organisation what they’d like. Not to get stuck on writing policies, but to just start something. Book a meeting room over a lunch hour and start a wellbeing conversation.

One of the key messages which Southampton City CCG wanted to impart was that despite the successes the CCG have had, it can be difficult to run an effective wellbeing programme. It is something that needs to be chipped away at. It needs people that are truly passionate about health and wellbeing and who can keep on trying different things when it feels like there is no interest. It needs consistency and ways to keep wellbeing in the minds of everyone in the organisation. If senior leadership isn’t totally on board, it needs a bit of research and evidence on how happy workers are more likely to deliver. It takes a relentless focus on quality that believes the support, care and happiness of others is paramount.

Wellbeing is not something we do: it’s a state of mind that helps us to live and work as happily and healthily as we can.

Download the Wellbeing Champion Model here: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Wellbeing%20Champion%20Model%20v.pptx

Leela Hunt, Service Development Officer and Beccy Willis, Head of Governance, SIRO and Data Protection Officer and Emergency Planner, NHS Southampton City CCG

If you’d like to get involved in developing this work then you can contact Derek via:

Email: Derek.stewart@ngh.nhs.uk

Tel: 01604-544365

Twitter: @DBuddie1987

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Our Journey to Outstanding: Count Me In!Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Finance Department

The purpose of our market stall was to share our learning from our service improvement programme called ‘Count Me In’ which we started at the beginning of 2019.

Our service improvement goals are: ▪ To better engage with staff across the organisation about

NHS finance and how we can best use our resources to provide high quality, efficient and sustainable care for our patients, and how everyone can contribute to the overall financial health of our organisation.

▪ To become an outstanding finance function. ▪ We hope some of these ideas will help you if you

are thinking of, or already embarking on, your own improvement journey.

This is how we got started… ▪ We gathered a core group of people who could see the

potential and opportunity of an improvement programme. For us this was the key to getting started!

▪ We used a department team meeting to outline a proposal of what our service improvement programme could look like. A few of us met in advance to pull together a rough draft outlining the case for change, this consisted of six very brief power point slides and some flip chart style posters to be used at the meeting to help support team discussion.

▪ Outlining the service improvement idea at a team/department meeting is key. It gives you the opportunity to find out what your colleagues are interested in, what they are passionate about and what they have been trying to resolve. This helps to identify key themes but more importantly helps to spread the load.

▪ As a result, the following working groups were identified, and each member of the team signed up to be part of a group:

– Accreditation (with Future-Focused Finance, ACCA & CIMA)

– Training (for non-finance staff) – Communication & Networking – Systems & Processes – Personal & Professional Development

▪ We created the role of Group Facilitator as leaders for each of the working groups. They help get the group together and to progress ideas. They’re not necessarily a senior member of the team.

▪ We hold a bi-monthly Finance Journey to Outstanding Steering Group, chaired by the Finance Director, attended by Finance Senior Team and Group Facilitators to report on progress. This helps to provide a loop back to the Senior Team and is also used to celebrate successes along the way. The outputs of the Steering Group are fed back into the department team meetings attended by all.

▪ We established a weekly 30-minute department briefing which takes place same time, same day every week so everyone gets into the routine of it taking place. The purpose is to communicate with each other, sometimes it’s about the latest recruitment taking place or letting staff know if a particular task needs focusing on at month end. We use the session for key updates on the service improvement work, particularly from each of the working groups, but anyone has the opportunity to say something: all are encouraged to participate.

Tips: ▪ Find like-minded individuals within your department who

can see the benefits of your improvement idea, it’s hard to get something off the ground by yourself but if you find your people you can bounce ideas of each other and support one another

▪ You need to be consistent, if you say you’re going to do something, do it, follow through and keep repeating until this becomes the new normal. If you didn’t have a positive experience of it the first time around, reflect on it make some tweaks and try it again. You’re basically enacting a PDSA cycle (Plan, Do, Study, Act). Keep at it!

▪ Perseverance is key! You may feel that not everyone is as engaged with your service improvement programme or idea as you are, or some colleagues may expect it to fizzle out. Don’t let this deter you: it takes time - months not days/weeks.

▪ Learn more about improvement tools and techniques. These are versatile so can be applied to any scenario. Check out the School for Change Agents an online course provided by NHS Horizons, it gives you a greater understanding of how you an individual can make a positive difference and make change happen more quickly.

▪ Network with other Trusts and Value Makers, learn from them, pinch ideas, share frustrations and motivations, it helps create a vision of what’s possible if your department comes together.

You can follow our Finance Team on Twitter @GHFTFinance please get in touch if you would like to know more.

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Continual Improvement – Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS FTWrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS FT Finance Department

The concept of ‘marginal gains’ from UK cycling has been applied to our continual improvement programme. The doctrine of marginal gains is all about small incremental improvements in any process adding up to a significant improvement when they are all added together. Lunch & Learn

Informal Lunchtime drop in sessions for 30 minutes once a month with presentations from a different team each time focusing on topics such as FSD & FFF, Costing, Procurement and Community Services.

Pop up SessionsDrop in sessions with representation from various finance functions held in the hospital. These provide an opportunity for Trust staff to meet the team and ask any finance-related questions they have. It helps increase the visibility of finance around the organisation and helps finance understand the needs of staff.

Training VideosInteractive training walkthroughs of processes such as filling in assignment change forms and using the suite of finance reports. Areas where the team are frequently asked for assistance have been chosen for the videos. It makes things easier for the staff as they can learn at their own pace and it frees up the finance team’s time.

Capacity & DemandThe Capacity & Demand tool forecasts the 18-week position. There was a gap in our information stream for a trust-level tool providing a singular consistent message. This has been developed in conjunction with clinical teams and is now being rolled out to all divisions across the Trust.

Notice BoardsRefreshed notice boards across the finance department highlighting the work going on throughout the team by promoting current and upcoming work and successes, and our current Value Makers & FACEs, as well as information on FSD events, how to become a Value Maker/FACE and pictures from recent conferences and events.

InductionUpdate to the finance induction which now includes “Meet an Exec” which is a short welcome meeting with the Director of Finance for every new member of the finance team. New staff have an introductory meeting with every team in the finance department to provide transparency and familiarity in finance of who people are, what they do and how their roles will interact.

PledgesMembers of the finance team are encouraged to make a pledge to go out into the hospital and spend time with a team. We have had people spending the day in the catheter lab, in theatres and doing mock CQC visits. This helps understand how the hospital runs day to day and how individual departments do things. It also gives departments an opportunity to get to know people in finance and that engagement can lead to better working relationships.

WWL have applied this concept to making change in the Finance department and currently have a number of small projects in progress to drive improvements through training and engaging:

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Show me the Money!

‘Show me the Money’ is an interactive training session that aims to give non-finance staff a quick snapshot of the different elements of Finance.

When run fully, there are seven different activities at different stalls that last 8-10 minutes each. Attendees are asked to join a stall when the training begins, and they then rotate clockwise so that they have the chance to attend each stall in the hourlong session. The aim is to provide quick, interactive and exciting games to catch the audience’s attention and hopefully leave them wanting to find out more about Finance. The games comprise the following:

Purchase to pay - do you know the correct steps to raise and receipt a purchase order?

Capital consequences - you only have £5M to spend; can you identify the high-risk capital projects to fund?

Who pays? - which patient receives free care and who has to pay?

Higher or lower - what does the trust spent the most on? Bank / Agency / Consultants additional Sessions?

Price your procedure - match the procedure with the income.

The price is right - test your procurement and tendering knowledge.

Who ate all the pies? - can you assign the trust’s overall cost breakdown to a pay and non-pay pie chart?

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

Megan Cromby, Stephanie Owens and Jing Ma, Liverpool Heart and Chest NHS FT

At the Value Maker Annual Conference 2019, we talked through some of the stalls and explained how our games worked. This gave the audience a chance to feedback on how they could change them to fit their own organisation and also allowed us to get some new ideas from them. We provided the delegates with examples of the games and training materials. We also took email addresses from those who requested more information and then sent over our pack of training materials so that they could implement it within their own teams.

In addition to providing the training materials, we also provided delegates with information on how we pulled the data together; a template for attendance lists that they could use; and a template for feedback to collect from their sessions.

If you are interested in learning more about ‘Show Me the Money’ training and setting this up in your own organisation, then please get in touch with Megan.Cromby@lhch.nhs.uk

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CCG Network Showcase

Natalie Fletcher established the CCG Network in 2019 after identifying an opportunity to set up an informal network for CCG colleagues to share ideas and build on their contacts in the commissioning sector across the country.

Natalie delivered a market stall at the VMAC19 to share the projects and work done so far in building the network and increasing its level of engagement with CCG staff across the regions. What was clear after speaking with Value Makers at the conference is that there is a real opportunity to work together on a wide range of things - from the big changes such as CCG mergers, to the day to day “where can I code this in the ledger?”

CCG and CSU colleagues who attended the stall were encouraged to join the network on the FFF website; a private space to post comments/ share documents and ideas – providing an opportunity to network online with colleagues from across the country.

On the date of conference, the current number of members in the network was 45, from 37 CCGs in England. A peer group has been established as part of the network, made up of five CCGs who are all working towards Level One FFF Towards Excellence Accreditation. The group will be sharing resources and supporting each other generally in achieving accreditation. Helpful resources produced will be shared via their new monthly newsletter, the online group and new Facebook and LinkedIn pages recently launched.

If you work in a CCG / CSU and are interested in accessing the network then there are a variety of different ways to get involved…

The CCG online network can be accessed on the FFF website here: www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/group/ccg-network

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/2479294312307248/

LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8823025/

Further information on the resources available and the CCG network can be found in a blog post by Natalie on the FFF website here: www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/blog/ccg-network-update

Natalie Fletcher, Head of Finance, NHS Vale of York CCG

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Apprenticeship Levy

The Countess of Chester NHS Hospital Foundation Trust (COCH) has an annual turnover of £250m and is top sliced circa £650k per annum in respect of the Apprenticeship Levy.

As the Trust is in a challenging financial position, utilising this fund by converting existing training programmes to levy-compliant schemes and exploring the potential to start new schemes as soon as possible has been a key focus of the organisation. The Finance function has led by example, accessing the apprenticeship levy for all AAT and CCAB students resulting in financial savings for both the Trust and individuals.

The Finance function at the Countess of Chester has a long-standing commitment to developing and supporting employees undertaking professional accounting qualifications, both in terms of time and cost.

In April 2017, there were five members of the team pursuing professional qualifications with the Trust’s support. The Trust’s Finance Training Committee made the decision that continuation of support must be done via the professional apprenticeship route to ensure the organisation was maximising the levy available and thus reducing demand on training budgets, whilst ensuring a good learning experiences for students.

Criteria for StudentsTo convert existing students or enroll new students to an apprenticeship route they must:

▪ have at least one year left on their studies (existing); ▪ complete the course within three years; ▪ be contracted to work at least 30hrs per week; ▪ have a C or above in English and Math GCSE (or

equivalent); ▪ spend 20% of their time on off the job training; ▪ complete an end point assessment; ▪ and demonstrate the relevant “Skills and behaviours” set

out by the apprenticeship.

Gavin Rush, Costing Accountant, Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

There are many NHS organisations that are paying into the Apprenticeship Levy and not utilising the funding. The Countess of Chester Hospital’s helpful resources, that were shared at the market-stall on the day, can be found here:

Apprenticeship Levy outline: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Apprenticeship%20Levy%20outline.pptx

Apprenticeship Levy FAQs: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Apprenticeship%20Levy%20FAQ.DOCX

Finance Training Policy: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Finance%20Training%20Policy.docx

Apprenticeship Levy summary: https://www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Apprenticeship%20Levy%20Summary.docx

Gavin delivered a market stall at the VMAC19 to provide a review of how the Trust have used their Apprenticeship Levy to fund professional qualifications for staff in the finance team. The aim of the stall was to encourage other organisations to adopt this approach to funding training, and, as a result, to help staff make savings. The session was an informal discussion around how the Trust has used the Apprenticeship Levy with the main focus being on questions from delegates. Delegates that attended will have taken away a better understanding of how they can use the Apprenticeship Levy to train their own staff.

Process to set up students Step One: identify existing students within department and assess against above criteria.

Step Two: identify education providers delivering level 7 accredited apprenticeship schemes (iCount / BPP and Kaplan all offer training including CIMA, CIPFA and ACCA).

Step Three: set up an account on the government gateway with providers so that they can claim the levy directly. A Service Level Agreement (SLA) would be beneficial here to outline expectations and responsibilities.

Step Four: update your organisation’s training policy to include the different types of apprentices.

Step FIve: agree expectations with students.

Step Six: regularly review and monitor students’ progress with students, line managers and training providers.

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Future-Focused Finance is a national programme designed to engage everyone in improving NHS Finance to support the delivery of quality services for patients. We want to bring finance staff at all levels of the profession together with the teams we work with in our own organisations and make sure that everyone has access to skills, knowledge, methods and opportunities to influence the decisions affecting our services. We believe by working together in this way we can harness our diverse and talented NHS workforce to produce high quality services and reduce waste in NHS spending.

The programme consists of national and regional events, networks, resources and talent development programmes – all designed to advance the understanding of finance in the NHS. Underpinning all of our work are commitments to value the diversity within NHS finance teams and to challenge behaviours that contribute to inequality in access to development and opportunities for some.

HEA.FIN.469 12/19

further informationYou can find further information on the Value Maker network on our website: www.futurefocusedfinance.nhs.uk Or contact us at futurefocusedfinance@nhs.net