Assistant Financial Accountant in Knowsley

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.

Job overview: An exciting opportunity has become available within the Finance Department at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The position of Assistant Financial Accountant will be based at Knowsley Community College and will be full time (37.5 hours).

Main duties of the job:

• Responsible for daily management of the Accounts Receivable team.
• Provide monthly debt management analysis and action plans to senior managers.
• Provide monthly Trust-wide balance sheet reconciliations, including analysis and actions/advice to resolve.

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 include:

• 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.
• Specialist Regional Services – We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital.

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:

• Accounts Receivable/Debt Management
• Leading debt management calls between the Trust and NHS Shared Business Services and agreeing action points.
• Negotiating with customers to recover debt in a timely manner.
• Preparing management reports/analysis for Accounts Receivable to help with communicating information at a higher level and aid decision making.
• Making suggestions on debt write-offs in line with debt management policy.
• Planning workload with the team, setting key performance targets.
• Providing performance feedback, coaching and training to the team.
• Assisting with Freedom of Information requests.
• Supporting both Internal and External audits ensuring data requests and any recommendations are acted upon.
• Balance sheet reconciliations
• Reconciling control accounts of the Trust on a monthly basis.
• Assisting in the preparation of reports and information for year-end accounts.
• Answering queries raised by finance colleagues, other staff members and sometimes the public.

Clinical and professional responsibilities:

• Maintaining professional registrations as necessary.
• Adhering to relevant code of practice of professional body.

Administrative responsibilities:

• Ensuring all relevant procedure notes and associated forms are completed and adhered to in line with departmental policy and audit requirements.

Teaching and training responsibilities:

• Actively participating in the annual performance development review to identify personal needs.
• Teach and train Accounts Receivable staff and other staff members as necessary.

Line Management/Supervisory responsibilities:

• Deputising for the Deputy Financial Accountant as and when required.
• Undertaking annual performance development reviews of Accounts Receivable staff.
• Day to day management of Accounts Receivable Staff.

Person specification:

• Qualifications: Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) Level 4 Diploma in Professional Accounting and/or education or significant experience to degree level.
• Knowledge and Experience: Supervisory experience, evidence of planning and organising tasks, experience of analysing, interpreting and presenting complex data, highly computer literate including MS Word and Excel, significant financial accounting experience, experience of working in NHS finance.
• Skills: Good standard of communication skills, acts professionally in all dealings, good standard of written communications, excellent problem solving and analytical skills, well organised, ability to work under pressure and to meet tight deadlines.

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.

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.

Flexible Working: We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL.

Working for Team MWL: Staff recognition is especially important to us; 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.