NHS future lies with finance directors
NHS accountants will have to fight to ensure the billions of pounds the government has given to the health service are not wasted, the new chair of the Healthcare Financial Management Association has warned.
‘There is never quite the same rigour of challenge when you are spending more money as there is when you are trying to make savings,’ Millar, who is FD of Suffolk Health Authority, told this month’s Financial Director magazine. The government has pledged an extra £19.4bn health service spending between 2000 and 2004.
Millar added: ‘If you are in financial difficulty you want the help of your accountant but, at times, the accountant has to be the realist at board level. They have to stand up and it can be quite lonely doing that.’
Links
Interview in full: Carer’s career in the NHS