NHSE desire to please government forcing finance chiefs to agree undeliverable plans

One of the NHS’s foremost finance figures has joined the chorus of senior healthcare leaders raising serious concerns about the damaging effect of the way the service’s annual planning round is conducted. 

Hardev Virdee is the group finance officer of Barts Health Trust, the junior vice president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and the chair of the NHS National Finance Academy.

In an interview with HSJ, he said:

• The planning process was undermining the credibility of both the financial plans it produced and the senior NHS finance staff involved.
• This “erosion of credibility” had grown over the last five years.
• NHS England’s main goal was to produce financial plans that were acceptable to government, rather than being sustainable or credible.
• The process means finance directors and boards are increasingly having to “consider unethical options”.
• The pressure felt by many senior NHS finance professionals is seriously affecting their morale, causing some to leave the sector, and discouraging others from taking on the most senior and toughest jobs.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 4 November 2024