Contracts Support Assistant

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. Administrative Support and Data Analysis for Contracts

a. Assist the Contracts Managers with collecting relevant documentation and information required for contracts including but not limited to quality compliance and insurance certificates and Trust policies.

b. Provide data analysis for new contract requests such as cost modelling and comparison for trust income versus contract price based on expected activity levels. Collecting the relevant information to do this.

c. Act as a primary point of contact to receive Key Performance Indicators from the Trusts contracted providers. Analyse KPIs versus the contract, query discrepancies and escalate breaches to the Service Manager and Head of Contracts.

d. Support the Divisions when they require ad hoc reports and help with regard to contracting issues.

e. Assist the Head of Contracts with Exit Planning tasks when clinical sub-contracts approach expiry/termination. Ensuring that all contract requirements of termination are tracked.

f. Be the primary recipient of specialised commissioning circulars. Maintain the tracker, seek advice from the (Head of Contracts/Senior Contracts Manager), cascade relevant information, queries and responses inside and outside of the trust as appropriate.

g. Assist the trusts Health Informatics Team with the quarterly data collection and submission of metrics required for the Specialised Service Quality Dashboards (SSQD). Prompt the service teams to provide their quarterly data, track the data requests and responses, assist with the interpretation of the metrics to support accurate data collection.

h. Collect and collate weekly data for the Central Diagnostic Centre (CDC) and submit this via the NHS England portal. This requires engagement with internal and external service teams, clinicians and ability to extract data from trust sources (e.g. the data warehouse).

i. Perform regular housekeeping of the contracts register at least once per month produce three lists of contracts to the Business Development Team as follows: where the contract is due to expire within the next 6 months, where the contract status is query (or similarly ambiguous), where the contract has expired. This will require planning and organisation of workload and reflect prioritisation of the wider team.

j. For all Business Development contracts, perform a regular audit and check of invoices in and out versus expected contract value. For NHS-NHS contracts where ASPH is the Provider this must be annually, for other contracts this may be every two years (or more frequently where the contract is considered high risk).

k. Support the Head of Contracts with responding to general data queries, including Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs). Identify appropriate data sources, prepare draft responses for review by the Head of Contracts, keep the FOI tracker up to date.

l. Be able to provide short term cover for the Contracts Managers (for planned and short term unplanned leave).

m. Work unsupervised using own initiative following departmental, trust and national guidance, policies and procedures escalating to senior managers, when necessary,

n. Provide and receive complex information, some of which may be contentious or sensitive and present it in such a way that it can be understood by the target audience, This may require providing data to colleague who are unfamiliar with data analysis and techniques so will need support and persuasion for the most appropriate way for the data to be presented. Such data includes, but is not limited to, spend and activity information for hospital services to patients including that which is contracted in or out with other partner organisations.

o. Review data reports as required, reviewing a range of options and analysis, ensuring that the systems used are robust and data anomalies are identified and investigated and then flagged as appropriate. Such data reports include, but are not limited to, trust patient level or service level activity and spend information.

p. Support Contract Manager with review of current working practices and policies and make suggestions for service development and improvement in line with national guidance and best practice.

2. Invoice Validation

a. Work with Finance to ensure that all recharges are raised to the correct amount across the full range of our subcontracts.

b. Ensure that invoices are correctly validated and that charges are correctly recharged to commissioners where appropriate.

c. Invoice checking create, maintain and operate monthly invoice validation processes for contracts where it is critical to ensure the trust has accurately recorded patient level activity data such as outpatient appointments or procedures, admitted care and diagnostics.

3. Data Analysis

a. Fulfil ad-hoc data requests and data analysis on the Trusts activity, coding and costing data and FOIs. This will require the audit and interrogation of the trusts databases via SQL Server Management Studio in addition to other data sources and methods such as Excel and clinical system applications.

b. Develop a knowledge of NHS income mechanisms and tariffs sufficient to provide cost modelling for new service developments and contracts. Use the Payment Grouper to test coding inputs.

c. Support the Head of Contracts and Director of Planning and Contracts with reviewing trust activity records and coding data to identify areas for improvement and to support annual activity planning.

d. Complete a monthly comparison of the trusts SUS data vs SLAM data and summarise findings to the Director of Planning and Contracts.

4. General

a. Work with the Head of Contracts, the Contracts Managers and Health Informatics to ensure increasing knowledge base.

b. Identify training requirements that will support the post holders professional development.

c. Undertake any other actions that ensure successful contract management and that the Trust meets its income targets.

d. Demonstrate activities and work to less experienced staff, new recruits and divisional staff needing to understand more about data analysis and how it affects them.

e. Demonstrate skills and knowledge gained via continued professional development to other team members in areas such as webinars, use of databases, on line portals and other suitable IT solutions.

f. Required to develop and maintain advanced keyboard skills and use of multiple software packages, IT systems etc in order to analyse, manipulate and present data as required.

5. General responsibilities

a. To support the department and organisation by carrying out any other duties that reasonably fit within the broad scope of a job of this grade and type of work.

Person Specification

Qualifications and Further Training

• Educated to degree level or equivalent experience

• IT and data analysis qualifications e.g. relating to Microsoft Excel and SQL Server Management Studio

Experience

• Work experience involving data analysis, data preparation and presentation
• Experience of working within an NHS or Healthcare environment

• Experience with Electronic Patient Records Systems
• Experience of performance monitoring or management

Knowledge

• NHS Constitution
• Trust vision, values and strategic objectives
• PBR / NHS Tariffs / NHS Payment System
• Knowledge of the use of data and how it is used to identify, track and monitor improvements

• NHS data standards
• Contracting cycle

Skills

• Effective written and verbal communication, and able to present complex information to others
• Highly effective analytical skills and high level Microsoft Excel skills - able to use formulas, pivots and other data analysis functions
• Able to use the Microsoft Office Suite to an advanced standard (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams)
• Able to work autonomously and with confidence to take decisions, within the remit of the job role
• Able to work independently where necessary to tight deadlines and to prioritise effectively against conflicting priorities
• Ability to identify problems/areas of risk and plan appropriate actions/interventions
• Ability to impart advice with clarity, adjusting style/approach as necessary
• Presentation and communication skills including data analysis and report writing
• Able to establish credibility and positive relationships with managers
• Able to work under pressure

• SQL or similar database skills or the ability to learn them

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such 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.

Employer details

Employer name

Ashford & St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Address

St. Peter's Hospital

Guildford Road

Chertsey

KT16 0PZ

https://www.ashfordstpeters.nhs.uk/