HSJ’s expert briefing on NHS finances, savings and efforts to get back in the black. By finance correspondent Henry Anderson.
Last week Simon Worthington, the finance director of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, retired after more than 20 years as a financial leader in the NHS.
The departing executive, who started his career in 1988 as management trainee at Leeds West Health Authority, spoke to Following the Money about his time at the city’s trust and how the finance profession has changed over those years.
Mr Worthington took on the role at Leeds in 2017, a year after the organisation had recorded a £30m deficit. Since then the trust has delivered seven consecutive years of budget surpluses, something which is becoming vanishingly rare in an acute sector characterised by deficits.
This was achieved by devolving decision making to clinical teams and asking them to solve problems, he said, but also by framing efficiencies differently.
He says: “We talk about waste reduction. Removing waste from processes cannot harm patients. We had our biggest year of waste reduction ever last year, and our staff survey went up. Patient quality indicators were fine, and going up, and our waiting times coming down.”
The assumption clinical teams aren’t interested in money is absolutely “not true”, he adds, highlighting the use of the “Leeds improvement method” and recasting the problem as how to deliver the best services within the financial envelope.
“As a finance director, you can’t be the enemy of quality… if you see them as separate, then you’ll run into difficulties… [it’s about] empowering clinical colleagues to improve their work, engaging them in the problem.
“The problem is, we’ve got to deliver great services for patients… the government have decided this is how much money we’ve got to do it with – and that is a lot more money than we had a few years ago.”
Date: 16 July