PCT — director of finance

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The role of the director of finance

Directors of finance in the old health authorities were unlikely to have been customers of NHS influencers. This may now not be the case. PCT finance directors will be closely involved in managing the primary care prescribing budget and will certainly be involved in medicines management since the prescribing budget is so visible.

As the new GP contract begins to be put in place, PCTs have begun to realise the implications for the prescribing budget. For instance, if quality payments are to be made available for the increased prescribing of certain drugs — statins for example — then PCTs’ prescribing costs could soar. One PCT finance director has said that although improving practice was clearly desirable, increased prescribing levels could exacerbate continuing problems with overspent drug budgets. Also, the NHS Plan and the modernisation agenda are likely to have the effect that PCT finance managers become more like industry finance managers. As business managers within the NHS take on more operational finance, finance managers will have to provide higher-level strategic support and in PCTs this may mean that these managers work in a more multidisciplinary manner.

Finance directors as well as PCT chief executives, and prescribing advisers were all asked to take note of the Department’s guidance on primary care prescribing and budget-setting for 2003/04-2005/06. The guidance document offers advice to PCTs on calculating resources for prescribing and setting prescribing budgets for practices over the next three years.

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ Health Service Network

The health service network of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants is worth tapping into to explore healthcare financial management. It produces useful quarterly briefings and organises a good programme of meetings.