4 Strengths for Interviews

I’m a Finance Expert How would you go about constructing a monthly cash flow forecast for the year? What do you see as the major issues for financial accounts in completing an asset year end ? When you are considering plans for capital expenditure for the coming year, what sort of things do you have to consider when formulating a capital plan? You are told by a Board member that they are planning for a £3m I&E surplus next financial year and are expecting a corresponding improvement in the cash balance over the year. What would you say to this? What are the future challenges facing the NHS and specifically facing Financial Services at LHCH in the context of the STP and LDS agendas? How would you go about developing, agreeing and implementing a budget for the Trust? What would you consider to be the key challenges for the Trust in managing within its budget? How would you go about finding the answer to a technical accounting issue that your Director of Finance has asked you about that you’ve had no experience of before?

I’m a Finance Expert How would you go about developing, agreeing and implementing a budget for the Trust? What would you consider to be the key challenges for the Trust in managing within its budget? What do you consider more important for presenting data – timeliness or accuracy? How would you achieve both? What are the key strategic challenges for costing and PLICS over the next 3-5 years? What experience do you have of planning and delivering cost improvement targets? Where do you think the greatest opportunities for efficiency savings are in the NHS? What are the key factors you would consider in formulating financial forecasts for the Trust? What do you consider to be the main strengths and weaknesses of Service Line Reporting as a management tool? How would you use SLR to improve the cost effectiveness of the Trust? Service Line Reporting (SLR) and Patient Level information Costing (PLICS) will be presented to a wide variety of users. Can you give examples of the different types of information that different user groups might wish to see?

I’m a Finance Expert So, thinking about PLICS, how would you apportion the following support costs?  Bed Management Team Clinical Coding Costs Divisional General Managers Which part of the PbR/NTPS Guidance have you found the most difficult to implement and why? What do you feel are they key challenges in the annual planning process when setting an income plan for the Trust? In the next two years, three major changes in accounting standards will come into effect, all of which could affect the way in which the trust prepares their accounts. Can you name one of the changes and explain how you think this could affect Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital? Can you tell me the difference between and FCE (Finished Consultant Episode) and a Spell and why it matters? Describe a situation where you had to explain something complex to a colleague or a client. Which problems did you encounter and how did you deal with them? What are the key strategic challenges for both income and costing over the next 3-5 years

I’m a Team Player Can you give me an example of where you have managed a difficult person/situation – how did you go about it and what did you learn from the experience? How would you ensure proactive working relationships across teams and how would you ensure that faced with conflicting deadlines, SLR tasks were achieved, including those requiring interaction with other another Dept. or team? Can you give me an example of when you have had to convey a difficult message to a non-finance manager. How did you go about it and what was the outcome? How could the trust use the results and intelligence gleaned from service line reporting to further its business activities? As part of your role as a senior member of the finance team, what contribution would you make to the management and development of the Finance Department Describe a situation where you needed to inspire a team. What challenges did you meet and how did you achieve your objectives? ·         Drive improved data quality/checks by the information team to ensure the data we receive on working day 4 is as accurate as possible reducing time identifying errors before uploading to SLAM. ·         Explore the possibilities of having a fully coded dataset by working day 3 and if not what are the impacts of potential U-codes in our data? Being able to produce a draft income/activity position by working day 3 will also benefit Management Accounts when looking at their expenditure. ·         Simplify the current income report set-up through the use of the income cube – this will reduce time checking all of the overly detailed reports reconcile and allow for more value added analysis time! ·         Have all adhoc income data received from across the trust and uploaded into SLAM with journals posted to the ledger by working day 2. Can you tell me where you have had to manage poor performance – how did you go about it and what did you learn? The finance team is small and this role is a key member of the Senior Finance team – Describe how you see your role in that team?

I Make Change Happen? Describe an occasion when you have disagreed with your boss on a particular issue – how did you handle it? We want to review the Cardiac Diagnostics function to determine average cost for each test. How would you go about this and what would you include within this costing? Who are the key stakeholders, internal and external who you need to work closely with? How would you go about developing your relationship with them? How would you identify data quality concerns and what steps could be taken both in the short and longer term to address the issues? How would you ensure that non-finance managers are engaged with the finance agenda and delivering on all their targets: income, expenditure and CIP? What type of responsibilities do you delegate. Give examples of projects where you made best use of delegation.

I Make Change Happen? The organisation really wants to see SLR, but is frustrated by a lack of visible progress and have lost some belief in it ever being delivered. How would you go about changing organisational attitudes to SLR? Tell us about a time when you had to convince a colleague that change was necessary. What made you think that your new approach would be better suited? Talk me through an example of how you have used systems or data to improve a process Tell us about a time when you had to convince a colleague that change was necessary. What made you think that your new approach would be better suited? How would you encourage end users to actively review information regarding their performance? What could you do as post holder to maximise use of the system?

I Drive Value for Patients and Taxpayers How do you make and maintain the link between your daily work and patient care? How do you see your role linking to patient care? Tell me about a situation where you have tried to improve inefficient processes – how did you go about doing so, were you successful? If so, why and if not, what did you learn? What would you hope to achieve in the first 6 months in post? How do you prioritise your work to ensure you and your team deliver what is required, within set deadlines? In this role you will have to work closely with colleagues inside and outside of finance. How would you seek to balance workload and conflicting priorities? How do you prioritise your work to ensure you deliver maximum value? It can be easy to forget that there are patients behind the calculations in your spreadsheets. How do you go about maintaining the link between your day to day work and its actual impact? Describe an occasion when you have disagreed with your superior on a particular issue – how did you handle it?