Norfolk & Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

Working in partnership with another training company to design and deliver two courses, one of which is ILM accredited

Background:

Norfolk & Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust provide specialist services to around 14,000 people at any time. The services that they provide are dedicated to the care of anyone experiencing mental ill health or substance misuse issues across Norfolk and North Suffolk.

We were invited to discussions with them through eras, a provider of high quality training solutions based in Diss, Norfolk. Eras had been selected as their partner to provide an ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management) accredited course at level 5 for over a hundred of their senior managers. Eras had also been asked to provide a comprehensive training programme for their first line managers. Having worked with eras to provide financial training for their clients since 2004, FST&C were their natural choice for a financial trainer to work with them on these large programmes.

Objective:

The two programmes that eras were asked to deliver included covering a broad number of subjects that were critical for effective management at the two levels. For both of the programmes, finance was a key element that needed to be included. Given the changes in NHS funding, the move to Payment by Results, the successful move to becoming a Foundation Trust and the continuing drive for efficiency, it was critical that the courses we designed and delivered would motivate employees to make changes that would have a positive impact on the Trusts finances.

Solution:

We worked closely with the Foundation Trusts in-house Finance team to find out more about the internal challenges that the people at these two levels were facing and the financial management and control requirements that they had. We designed a course for their first line managers and then built on this to provide a course for the senior managers that encompassed more detail and more strategic thinking.

Results:

These courses have now been delivered to hundreds of NHS staff at this Foundation Trust as part of the overall management and leadership programmes being delivered by eras. They are continuing to be delivered to new staff or those stepping up into new roles that require a good level of financial awareness.

The course participants have been able to understand the financial challenges that they face and can see how specific changes that they make can benefit their organisation financially. They now fully appreciate how their decisions and actions impact the finances and what this means to them in terms of future funds available to help them to further enhance the success of the Trust. We are told that there is a general feeling of greater motivation to succeed financially and less cynicism about how the finances are run and the reasons behind decisions that have been made.

Feedback from Course Participants:

All of the course was very relevant to my role and the current issues that we are facing. Very interesting and exceptionally well delivered, very engaging for what is potentially a dry subject. – John Clutton, Deputy Team Leader

Excellent, first class and very interesting introduction to the area of finance. Delivered with obvious expertise and passion, very high quality in keeping with previous modules. – Roger Kingerlee, Principal Clinical Psychologist

The delivery of this subject has made the topic more accessible. Pertinent subject, very useful and in appropriate context. – Michael Cummings

Very useful and reassuring in consolidating and ensuring understanding of budgets. A very difficult subject to deliver in an engaging manner – the trainer was excellent. – Andy Mack

I wasn’t looking forward to this course as I felt it may be dry and boring but it was interesting, insightful and thought provoking in relation to my role. – Jacqueline Johnson

A very good session, well paced. Finance is usually a dry subject but I was kept engaged. Very well presented. – Gary Greenwald

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