Deputy Financial Accountant

Merseywestlancs; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous pension scheme

Flexible working

27 days annual leave (pro rata)

Job summary

The Deputy Financial Accountant at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will play a key role in maintaining accurate financial information, leading on complex balance sheet reconciliations and providing expert financial advice. You will support system development and coach junior colleagues in a dynamic NHS finance team.

You will work with the Financial Accountant and Systems Development Manager to enhance reporting, ensure robust financial control, and deliver high-quality

Qualifications

• Significant financial accounting experience.
• Supervisory experience.
• Experience in NHS finance.
• Experience with the Oracle General Ledger System including BI.
• Ability to train and support others in the specialist area.
• Evidence of planning and organising tasks to meet deadlines.
• Ability to analyse, interpret and present complex financial data.
• High computer literacy: MS Word, Excel, Access.

Responsibilities

• Lead on balance sheet reconciliations and financial analysis.
• Support statutory reporting and financial governance.
• Develop and improve financial processes and systems.
• Coach and supervise junior colleagues in the team.

Skills

Advanced Excel

Financial accounting

Supervisory experience

Strong communication

Education

NVQ level 4 / AAT

Degree level qualification

CCAB professional qualification

Tools

Oracle General Ledger

Business Intelligence

MS Word

MS Excel

MS Access

Job description

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations.

Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

Main area Administrative and Clerical Grade NHS AfC: Band 6 Contract Permanent Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Monday - Friday) Job ref 409-8313579

Site Knowsley Community College Town Liverpool Salary £39,959 - £48,117 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 23/11/2026 23:59

Job overview

The Deputy Financial Accountant plays a key role in maintaining the accuracy, integrity, and compliance of the Trust's financial accounts and reporting. Working within a supportive finance team, you will lead on complex balance sheet reconciliations, financial analysis, statutory reporting, and the resolution of financial issues, helping to ensure robust financial control across the organisation. You will work closely with a wide range of colleagues, providing expert financial advice and supporting the delivery of high-quality financial services.

Alongside your technical accounting responsibilities, you will support the ongoing development and operation of the Trust's financial systems. This includes helping to maintain system structures, user access and reporting tools, improving financial processes, and supporting finance system developments and projects. This is an excellent opportunity for someone who enjoys combining technical accounting expertise with finance systems work and is looking to develop their skills in a varied and rewarding role.

You will also contribute to the continuous improvement of financial processes and systems, helping to develop more efficient ways of working and supporting the Trust's wider finance objectives. You will support and develop junior colleagues through coaching, guidance, and day-to-day supervision

Main duties of the job

As Deputy Financial Accountant, you will play a key role in ensuring the Trust's financial information is accurate, reliable, and compliant. You will lead on complex balance sheet reconciliations, investigating and resolving discrepancies, analysing financial data, and providing expert advice to finance and non-finance colleagues. Your work will support strong financial governance, informed decision-making, and the production of statutory and regulatory financial information.

You will work closely with the Financial Accountant and Financial Systems Development Manager, providing support and cover where required. This will give you exposure to a broad range of financial accounting and finance systems activities, including helping to resolve system issues, supporting financial reporting processes, and contributing to ongoing developments and improvements across the Finance function.

The role requires strong analytical skills and attention to detail, with responsibility for investigating complex financial issues, interpreting data from multiple systems, and ensuring financial records remain accurate and up to date. You will use a variety of financial and reporting systems, including advanced Excel, to analyse information, identify trends, and support effective financial control.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 10,500 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Our services:

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care

Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services

Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please find attached detailed job description and person specification for main responsibilities and requirements.

Person specification

Our Values

• We are Kind
• We are Open
• We are Inclusive

Qualifications

• NVQ level 4 Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) with experience equivalent to Degree level qualification
• Degree level qualification or experience equivalent to Degree
• Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB) professional accountancy qualification or willing to work towards

Knowledge and Experience

• Significant financial accounting experience
• Supervisory experience
• Experience of working in NHS finance
• Experience of the Oracle General Ledger System including Business Intelligence
• Experience of providing training and support to others in own specialist area
• Evidence of planning and organising tasks required to achieve a specific outcome within a specified timeframe without direction from line manager
• Experience of analysing, interpreting and presenting complex financial data, including contributing analytical information to support forecasting and expenditure monitoring
• Highly computer literate including MS Word, Excel, Access. Able to extract data, create and manipulate complex spreadsheets

Skills

• Excellent standard of written and verbal communication skills
• Acts professionally in all dealings with colleagues and in liaising with external bodies; must be able to adapt style appropriately to deal diplomatically with senior personnel
• Excellent problem solving and analytical skills
• Well organised, able to plan and prioritise own workload
• Ability to work under pressure and to meet tight deadlines
• Ability to support change
• Ability to manage conflicting priorities

Other

• Standard Keyboard Skills required
• Requirement to concentrate for long periods when inputting data and when analysing data/statistics
• Ability to undertake normal office duties, with sitting for prolonged periods

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [e-mail]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.
Certificate of Sponsorship

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update
For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK.
Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.
Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to:

• Understand how to generate an eVisa share code

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

• All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
• There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
• Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website.

You will be expected to undertake the Trusts' commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here .

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.