Job description

The Cost Accountant will be responsible for the provision of expert advice and recommendations to directorates on all National Cost Collection, Patient-Level Information Costing System (PLICS) and Patient Cost Benchmarking issues.

The post holder will support the Finance Business Partner - Costing and the Head of Costing and Income in the implementation of the organisation’s Costing and Service Line Management Strategies, ensuring that policies, systems and resources enable the Strategy of the Trust are delivered whilst ensuring compliance with appropriate technical, professional and quality standards.

The post holder will support the production of the Trust’s National Cost Collections in accordance with the national reporting timetables, be responsible for the development and Trust-wide usage of cost and activity benchmarking information to enhance and support strategic decisions, provide expertise in the production and development of PLICS and the provision of costing submissions to Monitor, have responsibility for the costing of specific services/projects to support the local delivery planning process, and support with the preparation of benchmarking reports in liaison with other trusts and communicate the findings to Divisions, the Head of Financial Planning and Strategy, the Director for Financial Management and Analysis and the Strategy team.

• To be a PLICS liaison for senior management and build relationships with other key clinical and operational stakeholders, the information department, and clinical coding team to broaden the understanding of the Trust’s services and how they are delivered.
• To support the Finance Business Partner – Costing in ensuring the timely calculation of quarterly PLICS in accordance with national guidelines, including the ongoing maintenance and development of costing rules within the Trust’s costing software.
• To conduct regular validation and analysis of calculated PLICS outputs, identify inconsistencies within the data and ensure that appropriate data improvements are applied to ensure accurate PLICS data is available for internal and external reporting purposes.
• Work with finance colleagues to share knowledge in order to improve the accuracy and understanding of the Trust’s cost base with specific emphasis on developing activity-based costing profiles to aid managerial decision making across the Trust.
• To assist with the development of tools for reporting user-friendly PLICS information and to develop and deliver key conceptual models to support the Trust in reaching and maintaining a gold standard costing service.
• To provide data for benchmarking exercises both internal and external to the trust.
• To provide expertise in the calculation and validation of patient-level costing information.

Detailed information is on the job description.

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and busiest teaching Trusts with a turnover of c£1 billion, 1.5 million patient contacts a year and around 14,000 staff based across 5 main sites in South East London. The Trust provides a full range of local hospital services across its different sites, and specialist services from King’s College Hospital (KCH) sites at Denmark Hill in Camberwell and at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) site in Bromley.

King’s is committed to delivering Sustainable Healthcare for All via our Green Plan. In line with national Greener NHS ambitions, we have set net zero carbon targets of 2040 for our NHS Carbon Footprint and 2045 for our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. Everyone’s contribution is required in order to meet the goals set out in our Green Plan and we encourage all staff to work responsibly, minimising their contributions to the Trust’s carbon emissions, waste and pollution wherever possible.

The trust-wide strategy Strong Roots, Global Reach is our Vision to be BOLD, Brilliant people, Outstanding care, Leaders in Research, Innovation and Education, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion at the heart of everything we do. By being person-centred, digitally-enabled, and focused on sustainability, we can take Team King’s to another level.

Benchmarking and Strategy

• To assist in the use of benchmarked cost and activity information in providing support for strategic decision making, including cost efficiencies, business plans/cases and service development. Using local PLICS and SLR data, the Patient Cost Benchmarking database and reporting system, (consisting of patient-level information of over 70 Trusts nation-wide), NHSIs PLICS Portal, Model Hospital and IQVIAs Hospital Optimisation Benchmarking tool to compare cost and activity at various levels (HRG, Procedure, Specialty etc) and use this information to inform and improve services provided at the Trust. This will involve further work liaising with Costing and Strategy teams at other Trusts to provide greater detail as to their underlying information as well as and understanding of their frontline working practices.
• To work with Service Managers, Finance Managers and Strategic Development teams to interpret and evaluate benchmarking activity in identifying areas of strength and weakness within the Trust’s operations.
• To combine PLICS, benchmarking data, financial forecasting models and other available information sources for the provision of bespoke planning information.
• To challenge management and consultants on their costs, as well as working alongside them to help fully understand their costs and factors affecting them based on working practices.
• To provide analysis into tariff income and the suitability of existing tariff and contracts to aid decision making about the need for improved funding arrangements.

National Cost Collections

• To provide key support for the annual completion of the Trust’s National Cost Collection to NHSEI. To make sure that the exercise complies with the comprehensive manual by the DOH and complies with national prescribed formats and accounting standards and is completed within specified deadlines.
• To maintain the IQVIA UserCost software in developing accurate outputs for the population of the National Cost Collections in line with costing guidance.
• To compare the trust’s submitted cost collections with the national tariff and non-tariff prices and to develop financial variances reports for the care group at HRG, speciality and sub- speciality level to determine future service delivery in the LDP.
• To provide expert information and analysis of the Trust’s reported cost collections within the organisation and support the understanding of how this information is used within Model Hospital and other centralised reports.
• Liaising with the Financial Accounts team as necessary to meet the criteria and guidance of the DOH.
• Ensure procedures are fit for purpose in line with the NHSI Approved Costing Guidance.