Business Development and Financial Acumen Series

Summary

The English NHS budget for 2025/26 is £193 billion or to show that in full £193,000,000,000 and if you divide that budget by the population of England (56 million people) that represents, an average cost per person of £3,446

However, despite this huge sum, NHS resources are under significant pressure, because of large post covid waiting lists, lower NHS productivity, an aging population, high public expectations, shortages of staff, threats of industrial action and challenges resulting from pressures on Local Authority social care budgets.

The result is the NHS needs to constantly improve how it operationally performs; it needs to make better decisions and it needs to maximise its use of resources (money, estate, technology and people) to meet these challenges.

To help HR professionals, the London Branch of HPMA has developed a programme of workshops to improve business skills and five of these workshops are below. These can be taken all together, singularly or in any combination you wish, and the workshops will cover the following.

• How Funding Flows through NHS Organisations (6th May 2025) – As mentioned above the English NHS Budget for 2025/26 is £193 billion, but how does this money flow from Parliament to the patient? This workshop will cover (a) How the Government funds public services (b) the implications of the UK national debt and how this limits public expenditure (c) the difference between revenue and capital budgets (d) how these funds flow from Parliament, through the Department of Health and Social Care/NHS England, Integrated Care Boards, through to NHS Trusts/Foundation Trusts, GP’s and other service providers and (e) explain the respective roles of these different organisations and (f) finally discuss the challenges of the future and what this may mean for the People profession

• Writing winning business cases (1st July 2025) – We have all heard of business cases, but do we really understand what makes a great winning business case? I believe producing an effective business case is a skill you can learn, and if you do, it will greatly increase your career prospects. The objective of this workshop is to help NHS HR professionals improve their business case skills and will include (a) the importance of identifying the real problem to solve i.e. framing the decision (b) developing and capturing a shared vision for what a good outcome would look and feel like for stakeholders (c) how would you measure this good outcome (d) the art of constructing logical options i.e. decision trees (e) tools to helping us compare options (f) the art of writing clear, logical, concise plain English (g) an overview of large scale NHS (Treasury) business case guidance (the five case model) and (h) finally how to improve your influencing skills, thereby facilitating more effective business case development

• Guide to budgeting (4th September 2025) – When I was a young accountant in Wales an experienced Director of Finance had a phrase which was “the money is the money”. By this he meant there is a finite pot of cash and if you have had your share you need to live within that, and do not overspend. This workshop will look at the science and art of budgets covering (a) the difference between strategic, operational and tactical plans (b) the definition of a budget (c) how budgets are centrally, regionally and locally monitored and reported upon and what this means to the way the NHS behaves (d) good practice in local budgetary reporting and control (e) different ways of creating local budgets (f) how the NHS nationally constructs its annual budget (g) efficiency savings and the difference between cash savings and productivity improvements, as well the important difference between recurrent and non-recurrent savings and finally (h) the psychology of budgeting i.e. why NHS management is more art than science

• Quality and Continuous Improvement methods for the People Function levels 1 and 2 (27th November 2025) – The world is increasingly becoming a more challenging place, and the task is often how to do more with less resources, indeed some people say that the NHS even needs to improve to survive! This is why the term continuous improvement is being spoken about more and more. But have you ever been confused by the language of continuous improvement? Words and names like Lean, Six Sigma, PDSA, Kaizan, 7 Wastes, Value, Value stream mapping, 5 Why’s and Virginia Mason Institute? This workshop is aimed at giving you an overview of what they mean. Clearly you will not be an expert on everything after just one morning, but you will have an overview and understanding of how to properly engage and participate in your local continuous improvement programme. 

• Using data and analysis to provide insights & make decisions (13th January 2026) – This workshop will look at (a) how we make decisions and the different types of problems we face we face in both our home and work lives (b) the role of information in decision making (c) types of data, including hard and soft data (d) how to present data and information well, with the aim of influencing people (e) understanding the importance (and pitfalls) of performance indicators, targets and benchmarking and (f) ethical considerations of using data and information in the modern world of social media, “fake news” and disinformation.

Location – online over Zoom.

Time – all workshops 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Target audience – Middle and senior HR professionals.

Numbers in each event – As they are over Zoom this is unlimited.

Pre-work – this will not be required. 

Facilitator

Paul started working in the NHS in 1983 as a Finance Graduate trainee and has since then gained 42 years’ experience of working in the NHS.

He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), a Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and holds a MBA from Cardiff University, specialising in Lean and Supply Chain Management. 

Since 1994 and to the present day, he has held wide variety of Board level posts in both Wales and England. This has including sixteen years a Director of Finance, five years as a Chief Executive and three years as a Director of Strategy. He has also worked in a wide variety of health organisations, including Acute, Mental Health, Specialised Services, Public Health, and the Welsh Assembly Government.

Following retirement in January 2018 Paul became a Non-Executive Director in Salisbury NHS FT (March 2018), before starting as Non-Executive Director in the newly created Bath and North-East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board in July 2022 and in November 2024 he became Chairman of Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. 

In addition to the non-executive roles above, Paul is also an Affiliate with the Jersey Audit Office, provides consultancy and training to a wide variety of organisations and finally he is a tutor for the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Academy teaching “tools to support decision making”.

Date: Please book onto each session you would like to attend

Time: All sessions open at 09:20 for a prompt 09:30 start - 12:30 close

Location: Online

By booking on this event, you are indicating that have read and agree to our event booking terms and conditions.

Please note the cancellation fee will apply of £100. We required 5 working days notice to cancel your place on an event. These events are in demand and to not fill them due to late cancellations is a waste of resource, please let us know in good time if your plans change.

Attending our workshop will enroll you to the HPMA London Academy mailing list and please be aware we make take photos to advertise our programme. If you do not wish to be added to the list or, to have your image used, please contact isabelle.meakin@gstt.nhs.uk