The business of delivering specialist services

Meet Dan, he’s the Business Manager for our specialist services which are healthcare services for specialist communities (such as prisoners, detainees in custody, the homeless and asylum seekers), or specialist conditions (such as dental, podiatry, MSK, healthy living, mental health).

Dan has shared with us what his role as a business manager entails…

Dan collecting an award at the
LCH Achievement Awards in 2014.

Tell us, what does your job involve?

I am a key link for our services with commissioners. I ensure we have fair contracts that are value for money, that are well specified and that have effective and realistic performance measures. I help services compete for new business or compete to retain their existing business when it goes out to tender. I manage the innovation and business change functions so that services are supported to innovate, improve and embed any changes.

What attracted you to this role?

I've always worked in healthcare and had got into quite strategic roles which felt detached from services and real people. I saw this role advertised and had worked with York Street Practice in a past life and had enjoyed it so I thought I would give it a go. It's a very busy and challenging role, I've never worked so hard in my life! However, it is extremely rewarding as I can see how I am impacting on healthcare for real people despite not being a clinician myself.

What is the best bit about doing your job?

No day is the same. I get to go all over the city, meeting all sorts of people. I'm often working with services that have problems but this doesn't get me down as I feel that I am helping them overcome issues or barriers.

Do you have a particular highlight from your career to date?

I think it was when we won the very first NHSE 'Excellence in Public Participation' award last year. It was for a piece of work where we collaborated with homeless and asylum seeker clients at York Street Practice to improve how they access services and as part of this we won some funding so that patients could use digital technology to manage their own healthcare. When we went to collect the award for this innovation we got to take service users with us. It was extremely powerful and so rewarding to have national acclaim for what was essentially a very simple project. Also when we won the police custody bids it was so exciting - it was hard to believe that months of hard work and late nights had paid off and it made me extremely proud to work for LCH and to have been part of that team.

How has your past experience helped with your role?

I did a Communications degree back in the day so people often think it's weird I've ended up with the job that I do in the NHS. However, the key competency I need for my day to day working is communication skills and the ability to form effective relationships, so perhaps it wasn't such a waste of time after all! I also did a lot of voluntary caring roles at university which made me realise early on that I wanted a career in the NHS and not in the cut throat media industry!

If someone was thinking of joining the trust in a similar role, what advice would you give them?

Regardless of whether a role in LCH is clinical or managerial we need people who have the right values and who have good people skills - if this is you then do come and work for us. We can train people in all manner of skills and knowledge areas but we cannot train you in the values - this has to be core to you. If you have our values then get in touch!

If you would like to join our team, click here for our latest roles being advertised.