Consultant wins national award for his work with the finance team

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A Lincolnshire consultant has won a national award thanks to his working alongside finance teams in Lincolnshire’s hospitals.

Mr Kulandaivel Sakthivel, an orthopaedics consultant known best as Vel, won the Working with Finance – Clinician of the Year Award at the annual Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Awards.

The awards, held on Thursday 10 December, are a chance to recognise the work of finance teams and individuals across the UK.

This award acknowledges the importance of clinical engagement in financial management and in particular recognises a clinician who has taken financial responsibility for their services, led efficiency or improvement programmes or provided an example for other clinicians by engaging with the financial management agenda.

Vel was greatly involved throughout a Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) pilot and the subsequent and ongoing changes in trauma and orthopaedics following the review. Vel has engaged heavily with both his finance and procurement leads – showing a real business focus, with a willingness to challenge his clinical colleagues to provide ultimately a better service for our patients and an improved financial position.

As clinical lead Vel had the responsibility of driving forward changes to improve the number of elective surgeries taking place. He reviewed financial opportunities, such as moving to single suppliers, and then getting this implemented across all ULHT sites.

The judges said: “We are impressed by the very close collaboration between the clinical, finance and management team to address the reorganisation of orthopaedic services at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust using GIRFT data and winning hearts and minds.

“A blueprint and momentum have been produced to use the same approach across the trust in other clinical services and has created a can-do approach to change based on clinical and financial collaboration.”

Vel gave his immense thanks to Sally Cotterill, Kirsty Stanley and all in the Finance team.

“I work with a great team of both clinical and non-clinical staff and it makes my job a lot easier. I am proud to be an employee of ULHT and very happy to see that we are in the press for a great achievement. Being nominated in eight categories and shortlisted in three for national awards is no mean feat. Let’s keep up the good work and make ULHT great!”

ULHT’s Director of Finance and Digital, Paul Matthew said:” This is the first time we have entered in the HFMA awards, so we are extremely proud to have been shortlisted for three awards and to have won one! We wanted to highlight the immense hard work of our finance teams and will be displaying this award with pride.”