ROYAL BROMPTON & HAREFIELD NHS TRUST

	Harvey Nash took the time to listen and really understand what we wanted
	Bob Bell, Chief Executive, The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust

A HEALTHY BALANCE

The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust is one of the largest centres for the investigation, treatment and care of people with heart and lung conditions in the world.

Last August the Trust used Harvey Nash to help it recruit a new Finance and Performance Director. Chief Executive Bob Bell says: “We needed a commercially-minded finance director, and Harvey Nash’s challenge was to find someone with not just the right technical skills, but also the right experience and personality. The right person needed the ability to manage the politics in the health sector – but also the ability to fit with the culture of the Trust and the top team. Harvey Nash took the time to listen and really understand what we wanted.”

The new recruit would be one of a growing number of hires from the private sector, including Bell himself. HR Director Tony Vickers says: “The complexity of managing in the NHS makes it a fantastic challenge for people from the commercial sector, and salaries are much more competitive these days in order to attract the kind of high-calibre people we need.”

One of the challenges facing the new Finance and Performance Director would be to exploit the Foundation Trust’s relative financial autonomy and considerable capital resources – it owns lots of property – in order to improve the infrastructure of the two hospitals. But unlike many health sector trusts, its exemplary financial management has led to a surplus, so the new incumbent could build on a strong foundation.

The Trust briefed Harvey Nash last August, and in November Mark Lambert, formerly Finance Director of Specialist Lending Services at The Royal Bank of Scotland and an alumnus from PricewaterhouseCoopers, joined the organisation.

“Mark is highly qualified and has lots of experience in blue chip companies, but he demonstrated a real passion to join the NHS,” says Vickers. “He also has excellent communication skills: being able to express complex financial issues in a jargon-free way that clinical people can easily understand won him early credibility.”

Bell concludes: “Mark has helped us strike a better balance between financial and health considerations at the top of the organisation, and we are a lot more commercially- and futurefocused as a result.”