NELFT has been awarded the Towards Excellence Accreditation, at level 2, by the NHS Finance Leadership Council.

The One NHS Finance Towards Excellence Accreditation process is designed to allow the Finance Leadership Council to give due recognition to organisations that have the very best finance skills development culture and practices in place.

There are three levels, each designed to reflect the continuous development of a finance function and recognising the highest standards of financial competence and commitment to skills development. The process is reviewed on a regular basis to ensure it remains fit for purpose.

The Accreditation process was established to confirm good finance skills development practice is in place and maintained in all NHS organisations across England. It encourages continuous development of the organisational financial competence through increasingly higher standards of skills development within the finance function, thus enabling organisations to meet the challenges of the changing agenda. It celebrates the success of organisations who take skills development seriously and so are able to identify continuous improvement of the capability and financial competence of both the finance function and the organisation, as a whole.

Level 2 High Level of Performance emphasis is on sustained performance. Organisations must demonstrate an overall culture that is innovative and consistently supportive of the development of the finance capability throughout the organisation. Moving from Level 1 to Level 2 – it is expected that newly accredited organisations allow a 12 month ‘grow’ period before applying for Level 2, thus allowing a sufficient timeframe for systems and processes to be fully embedded. Accreditation applications at Level 2 and 3 must be assessed by peers. This process provides an additional level of assurance over and above a self-assessment process.