Final part of the article: Reducing costs and improving quality in the NHS!

If we look at those organ­i­sa­tions that are lead­ing in cost and qual­ity in the NHS and other health­care sys­tems, we see new ways of work­ing emerg­ing. We see finance direc­tors who cham­pion qual­ity improve­ment across their organ­i­sa­tions in part­ner­ships with nurse direc­tors and med­ical directors.

We see finance lead­ers who are skilled in meth­ods for process improve­ment and who oper­ate effec­tively at the inter­face between clin­i­cal processes and the man­age­ment of resources. These lead­ers are able to frame effi­ciency and pro­duc­tiv­ity issues in ways that con­nect with the pri­or­i­ties and val­ues of clin­i­cal teams. Finally they are for­ward look­ing, work­ing with other cor­po­rate lead­ers to cre­ate a dif­fer­ent future for the organisation.

We do not pre­dict that the tra­di­tional role of the finance leader will dis­ap­pear. Rather, that on its own, it will be insuf­fi­cient to deliver the sus­tain­able cost and qual­ity improve­ments that NHS organ­i­sa­tions require in the future.

And it is not just the finance func­tion in the NHS that needs to evolve; we all have to rethink atti­tudes towards costs and qual­ity. Instead of sys­tems to improve the qual­ity and reduce the cost of care, we need to estab­lish sys­tems to improve the value of care. This requires new think­ing about how to unify cost and qual­ity goals and how to rede­fine improve­ment tools.

It also means new skills for clin­i­cal and man­age­r­ial lead­ers. These range from capa­bil­i­ties in improv­ing and mea­sur­ing ser­vices through to dri­ving the money that is released by process improve­ment through to the bot­tom line.

Writ­ten by Helen Bevan  (Direc­tor of Ser­vice Trans­for­ma­tion) and Micheal Caw­ley (Direc­tor of Finance and Busi­ness Ser­vices at the NHS Insti­tute for Inno­va­tion and Improvement).

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2. Process improve­ment in the NHS!
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