Assistant Income Accountant

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

The closing date is 27 March 2025

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the Finance Team within Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust - you will be joining at a time when you can help to redefine the team's ethos. For that reason, we are looking for candidates who can already demonstrate embodiment of the Trust's vales:

Professionalism - including self-development and demonstrating compassion to colleagues
Respect - creating and fostering positive relationships
Innovation - looking for continuous improvement
Dignity - treating colleagues as individuals
Empowerment - building your confidence and independence

You will be part of a team which has gone through significant change over recent months and are therefore looking to rebuild their resilience. We are committed to providing a supportive work environment where employees can work to the best of their abilities. We value professional development and care about health & wellbeing of our staff with many initiatives in place to make us an employer of choice and an organisation than employees are proud to be a part of.

A fantastic opportunity for someone with a finance background, who is AAT Qualified and looking to gain a further CCAB professional qualification. By supporting the Trust to ensure it recovers all income due, and aid the development of PLICS costing methodologies, the post holder will gain a broad understanding of the entire range of services the Trust provides.

Main duties of the job

Maintenance and development of robust internal reporting systems to ensure patient related income is calculated accurately and recovered in a timely manner in accordance with national guidance.
Production of timely, accurate and reliable financial information in line with monthly and year end timetables.
Supporting the Cost & Income Accountant in budget-setting and maintenance of a defined portfolio of budgets.
Establish effective working relationships with Contracting and Information and Performance Leads, ensuring understanding and ownership of financial issues pertinent to their areas.
Investigate complex financial data to support variance analysis, and provide assistance and advice as required. This includes supporting the response to commissioner challenges.
Identify trends from queries and pro-actively seek solutions in order to aid improvement.
To act as a contact point for advice regarding the Department of Health policy and procedures in relation to Overseas visitors charging, to assess the possibility of a patient's eligibility for charging exemptions all in line with the DoH Overseas Visitor regulations
Ability to work under pressure and to tight deadlines

About us

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting andempowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research and development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including people with long term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk

Date posted

13 March 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 5

Salary

£29,970 to £36,483 a year per annum pro rata

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

310-CORP-7062373

Job locations

Kingfisher House

Kingfisher Way, Hinchingbrooke Business Park

Huntingdon

PE29 6FH

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities

Income

1. Liaise with other staff in the Finance Team to ensure production of timely, accurate and reliable financial information on a monthly basis, and as and when required.

2. Comply with all delegated responsibilities in respect of the monthly closedown timetable including:

Production of draft reports for review.

Prompt investigation of variances and correction of errors.

Supporting the production of reliable forecasts in agreement with Commissioning Leads and the Finance Managers.

Providing information pertaining to the budgets within own area of responsibility for inclusion in monthly finance performance reports.

3. Providing financial management and advice to Contracting Leads across a range of budgets, referring appropriate issues to the Cost & Income Accountant.

4. Undertake detailed financial analysis to support understanding of variances from plan, including use of non-financial information such as activity performance against targets

5. Ensure a full audit trail is maintained for all budget changes within own area of responsibility, regularly reviewed and reconciled and that all budget changes are in line with the Trusts Standing Financial Instructions and financial procedures.

6. Assist in responding to queries in the Finance Queries inbox and from Contracting Leads in a timely and appropriate manner, and as requested by the Cost & Income Accountant.

7. Maintain a working knowledge of the National Tariff Payment System to ensure clinical income due to the Trust is recorded and invoiced in line with statutory guidance and timeframes.

8. Manage and support the process and calculation of clinical income activity both in month and year to date, ensuring the position is accurate and reported in accordance with the accounting principles within the Trusts General Ledger system.

9. Support the production of monthly monitoring reports to commissioners, in line with the minimum dataset agreed in the contract.

10. Raising of invoices, both contractual and non-contractual, in line with the timetable outlined in the National Tariff Payment System guidance.

11. Acting as the main point of contact for any invoices raised to commissioners which results in the need to investigate and respond to queries within agreed timescales. This may involve discussing disputed invoices and late payments with internal and external staff in relation to sensitive patient level information.

12. Provide support during the contracting process to ensure the Trusts contractual income and activity plans are set accurately, in accordance with statutory guidance and within agreed timescales.

13. Work closely with colleagues from the Information and Performance Team to ensure the integrity and consistency of financial data is robust at all times i.e. income information is correctly reported and coded.

14. Provide support to the Cost & Income Accountant in respect of the income & costing function.

15. Maintain appropriate records, working papers and procedure notes to support audit requirements for the income and contracting function.

16. Contribute to reviewing and updating departmental processes with a view to improving the effectiveness of the department and the services provided.

17. Review the Trusts aged debt report regularly, contacting debtors relating to own area to resolve any disputes and facilitate payment.

88. Run and develop reports for use by team members using Oracle.

Costing

19. Support the development of costing methodologies in order to assist with the production of statutory submissions for PLICS and National Cost Collection returns. This will include liaising with the Information and Performance Team and clinical colleagues to drive improvements in the quality of existing data.

20. Support the Cost & Income Accountant in facilitating and communicating complex data for other Departments and Managers across the Trust, to obtain data necessary to support the costing model.

21. Support the service transformation agenda by providing costing and service line reporting (SLR) data for financial modelling.

22. Take an active role in both the initial implementation and the ongoing development and maintenance of the Trusts costing systems, ensuring that data standards and processes remain in line with the National required guidance, and allowing for continuous improvement on an ongoing basis.

23. Be able to explain financial information to non-finance managers.

24. Contribute to a training programme for non-finance staff across the Trust.