Assistant Cost Accountant

North West Borough Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; England; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust requires a costing data professional to support collection, processing and maintenance of costing data including PLICS and national submissions. You will help ensure compliance with costing guidance, support benchmarking and develop costing methodologies.

The role focuses on providing meaningful costing insights, unit costs and cost drivers to inform service decisions across the Trust and its divisions, with a strong emphasis on data quality and analytics.

Qualifications

• 5 GCSEs or equivalent, including English & Maths.
• CCAB or CIMA part-qualified at certificate level, or AAT qualified.
• Knowledge of the NHS finance regime relevant to financial management and costing.
• Advanced Excel skills and ability to analyse data.
• Ability to communicate financial information to divisional teams and managers from a non-finance background.

Responsibilities

• Support the collection, processing and maintenance of costing data, including PLICS, national costing submissions, Service Line Reporting and the Trust Costing Manual.
• Help ensure compliance with national costing guidance and support benchmarking and service reviews.
• Develop costing and apportionment approaches and respond to costing queries from divisions and corporate departments.
• Provide costing insight, including unit costs and cost driver analysis, to support decision-making across the Trust.

Skills

Advanced Microsoft Excel skills

Data analysis

Communicate financial information to非‑

Teamwork

Attention to detail

Education

CCAB or CIMA certificate level

AAT qualified

Degree or postgraduate management qualification

Tools

PLICs system

Costmaster costing system

Microsoft Power BI

Job description

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

Using AI to support your application

AI can be a useful tool to support the preparation of your application. However, all information submitted must be accurate, truthful and reflect your own skills, experience and achievements. Applications should include personal examples demonstrating how you meet the person specification. Applications that appear mostly or fully generated by AI, without clear personal examples linked to the person specification, may be rejected. For tips and guidance, please refer to our applicant guidance.

Identity verification

Candidates attending interview will be required to provide original photographic identification where available. Where suitable photographic identification is not available, a photograph will be taken at interview for identity verification purposes. Successful candidates will also be required to complete digital identity and right to work checks via TrustID, including facial recognition and image matching technology, to verify their identity throughout the recruitment and onboarding process. Identity verification will also be undertaken on the first day of employment in line with NHS employment check requirements.

Job overview

To support the delivery of a high-quality costing service, recognising the increasing strategic importance of accurate patient-level costing data in delivering the NHS 10 Year Health Plan, productivity and efficiency improvements, and the move towards more activity and outcome-focused funding arrangements.

All interviews will be held face to face (we are unable to accommodate virtual interviews).

A short excel assessment will take place prior to the interview. Assessment details - excel test on patient level activity and costs

Main duties of the job

The post holder will support the effective collection, processing, validation and maintenance of costing data, including PLICS, national costing submissions, Service Line Reporting and the Trust Costing Manual. They will help ensure compliance with national costing guidance, support benchmarking and service reviews, develop appropriate costing and apportionment methodologies, and respond to costing queries from clinical divisions and corporate departments. Recognising the increasing importance of robust costing and activity data in supporting Deconstructing the Block, productivity and efficiency, the post holder will provide meaningful costing insight, including unit costs, cost drivers and analysis of variation, to help services understand resource utilisation, identify opportunities for improvement and support evidence-based decision-making across the Trust.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will support the effective collection, processing and maintenance of costing data, including the PLICS system, national costing submissions, Service Line Reporting and the Trust costing manual. They will help ensure compliance with national costing guidance, support benchmarking and service reviews, develop costing and apportionment approaches, respond to queries from divisions and corporate departments, and provide costing insight, including unit costs and cost driver analysis, to support decision-making across the Trust.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• 5 GCSEs or equivalent, including English & Maths
• Relevant academic background: CCAB or CIMA part-qualified at certificate level, or AAT qualified.

Desirable criteria

• Degree or postgraduate level management qualification.
• Progression towards or willingness to study CCAB or CIMA qualification.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Previous experience in a financial management or costing role.
• Able to perform complex numerical data and producing accurate, meaningful analysis.
• Ability to communicate financial or costing information to divisional teams and managers from a non-finance background

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working in an NHS Finance department.
• Previous experience of using an activity-based costing system.
• Experience of staff management

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of the NHS finance regime particularly those relevant to financial management and costing.

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of the Costmaster costing system
• Knowledge of NHS Costing procedures

Skills

Essential criteria

• Able to work with data and produce figures in a clear, accurate and meaningful manner
• Able to concentrate over long periods while dealing effectively with interruptions
• Able to analyse data and trends to draw conclusions and support decision making
• Ability to manage own time and administration in an effective manner.
• Must be able to work as part of a team
• Demonstrates continuous self and professional development
• Excellent attention to detail and ability to identify anomalies in data.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills.
• Must be able to work without direct supervision

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge and use of Microsoft Power BI

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email