Head Of Financial Services

NHS Trust South West

Head of Financial Services Band 8D

£83,571 - £96,376 plus excellent NHS benefit package

Hybrid working 2/3 days in the Swindon office

About Us

The Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is a major provider of hospital and community services to the people of Swindon, Wiltshire and surrounding counties. We are an ambitious and progressive Foundation Trust, with 1.2 million patient contacts every year and a c £460 million annual turnover. Safety, quality and the patient experience are central to every decision we make and everything we do.

At Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GWH), the finance department prides itself on being friendly and driven and on encouraging every team member to train, develop and improve personally and professionally. We want to support you to have a rewarding career in NHS finance with us, and will work with you to map out your training and development needs, while allowing you the autonomy to design the most effective way of adding value through your role. We want to hear from pro-active, ambitious team players who are keen to make improvements to the delivery of Financial Services for the benefit of our patients.

The Role

GWH is looking to recruit a Head of Financial Services who would have overall management of the Financial Services team as well as contractual management of the outsourced procurement and payroll functions and relationship management of NHS Shared Business Services.

Reporting to the Deputy Chief Financial Officer, your key responsibilities will be to:

• Provide high-level support and advice on all financial accounting matters. This includes leading on the production of the annual accounts and external financial reporting, treasury management, short- and medium-term strategic financial planning and capital planning, including all aspects of our PFI.
• Deliver all financial accounting requirements in a professional and efficient manner and to high standards.
• Lead on financial governance, audit and counter fraud issues including the maintenance and monitoring of Standing Financial Instructions and other financial policies.
• Lead the financial element of the Trust Capital Programme ensuring effective prioritisation, monitoring and escalation systems are in place to address the needs of the organisation.
• Drive continual improvement in the Financial Services team and across the finance department, making best use of systems, robotic process automation and our resources to provide an efficient, value-add service to the organisation.
• Lead the strategic finance input to our PFI exit programme, which will involve managing considerable uncertainty around scenario planning for the various services in the current contract.

About you:

To succeed in this role you will:

• Be a qualified Accountant with experience, confidence and ambition to lead in all aspects of Financial Services and have significant experience of working in a medium to large and complex NHS organisation.
• Be a strong leader, able to communicate with your peers and team members and have resilience to adapt quickly to changing priorities and demands of the NHS and the wider system.
• Have excellent verbal and written communication skills and demonstrable experience of leading and engaging finance and other corporate functions to deliver a mature rounded service.
• Have a confident and thorough understanding of NHS Planning and Reporting as well as a commercial understanding of PFI Contracts and Capital programmes.

The benefits

In return for your hard work and dedication you will enjoy a wide variety of benefits including:

• Band 8D salary package £83,571 - £96,376
• 27 - 33 days holiday (based on length of NHS service), plus bank holidays
• Hybrid and flexible working available
• Standard NHS pension and other associated benefits

NHS Experience is certainly not a prerequisite for this role but would be beneficial and we would welcome applications from all sectors. We encourage people from diverse backgrounds to apply for our roles as diversity strengthens our teams.

For more information on this role please contact Nicola Shaw at Morgan Law on