Working Towards Month-End with the Finance Team...

27th October - 31st October 2014

As it is half-term in Cheshire, the office has been relatively quiet with a number of staff being on leave! This week has involved continuing to work with the finance team as we are coming up to month end. With the help from Kim, one of the finance assistants, who has been really helpful in guiding me through the process of invoicing, I have been coding invoices and investigating invoice queries. I didn’t realise the amount of time that is needed to investigate queries to determine whether a payment is outstanding or not. Working with the finance team over the past few weeks has enabled me to learn about the invoicing process in the NHS. Within the Cheshire East area, we currently have the largest ageing population in the North West, resulting in there being a huge amount of pressure on providing care to elderly individuals and I was rather surprised to see the amount of money that is allocated to care for patients in nursing homes.

A project which I am looking forward to being involved in during my placement is surrounding the commissioning of mental health services for women who require support during pregnancy and up to a year after the birth; these services are referred to as 'Perinatal Mental Health Services'. A report was published in the past month which explained the importance of commissioning these services, due to the increase in mental health conditions whilst pregnant and the period of time after the birth. It has been estimated that around 20% of women experience mental health problems during the maternal stage of their lives and conditions such as depression, anxiety and psychosis are on the rise. It was reported that only 3% of CCGs currently have strategies in place to commission these types of services, therefore here at the Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group we are aiming to determine the local need for perinatal services, in order to improve the health and wellbeing of women and their babies within the local area.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog posts; during the past few weeks I have been completing my training towards gaining certificates in healthcare finance, commissioning and business services. I have now passed all five modules from the HFMA (Healthcare Financial Management Association) and have officially achieved the certificates!