Employer: Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Job Title: Senior Management Accountant
Location: United Kingdom
Salary: £57,528 to £64,750 a year
Job Type: Full-time
Closing Date: 21 June 2026

Job Summary

An opportunity has arisen for the role of Senior Management Accountant, acting as the Financial Management lead for one of the Trust’s clinical divisions and playing a key role in managing and reporting its financial position.

The post holder will provide expert financial advice to operational colleagues and lead their staff in providing an effective financial management and reporting service.

The successful candidate will be a fully qualified CCAB or CIMA qualified accountant with significant financial management experience in a large organisation. They will have experience of managing and developing staff and will have demonstrated the ability to build effective working relationships and deliver timely and accurate financial reporting.

The JD & PS are currently under AfC review and are subject to change.

Main Duties of the Job

• Provide expert financial advice and oversight of financial management across their division
• Influence investment decisions and priorities for the division, including providing financial input into business cases and informing management decisions
• Support operational teams with addressing budget variances and delivering challenging efficiency targets
• Lead the month end process for their area of responsibility, ensuring timely and accurate reporting
• Co-ordinate the budget setting and forecasting processes
• Manage and develop Management Accountants and other support staff

About Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust strongly believes that the communities served should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Services

Acute Care

Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all 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. The inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. Urgent care is also provided at the Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services

Providing the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

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

Job Responsibilities

Key Duties

• To establish and maintain strong working relationships with both key internal and external individuals to ensure effective working.
• To influence investment decisions and priorities of several departments within the Division.
• To develop and evaluate formal business case proposals from the Division including presenting financial information to the senior management team.
• Support the commissioning process of any service provision to external organisation including costing of such proposed service.
• Ensure all aspects of the Trusts financial policies are adhered to; value-for-money secured and financial stability achieved.
• Contribute to the accuracy and production of the corporate financial reporting including statutory returns, final accounts and Reference Costs submission.
• Co-ordinate the annual Budget Setting process.
• Ensure financial reports to the Division are developed and amended to meet evolving information requirements.
• Demonstrate understanding and fully utilise all relevant forms of technology and information systems.
• Monitor the financial performance (both income and expenditure) of the Divisions, identifying and reporting variances.
• Participate in maintaining and monitoring the Trusts General Reserves.
• Utilise information streams such as SLR / PLICS / IPR / SLAM / PCB / Qlikview within the Division.
• Assist the Head of Financial Management with the completion of the Trusts financial plan and its subsequent monitoring.
• Support service units within own area of responsibility to develop, assess and implement a cost improvement plan (CIP).
• Support in the identification and monitoring of divisional cost improvement plans.
• Promote greater financial management and financial control amongst the divisional management team.
• Maintain the integrity of the financial ledger and other financial systems.
• Ensure Final Accounts working papers are prepared in accordance with procedures and timescales.
• Ensure that all communication with others is conducted in a professional and competent manner.

Clinical & Professional Responsibilities

• Maintain Professional Registration
• Adhere to relevant Code of Practice of Professional body

Administrative Responsibilities

• Update financial management reporting timetables ensuring synchronisation with statutory, external reporting timetables and internal Trust reporting timetables.
• Ensure working procedure notes exist for the post holder duties within this job description.
• Ensure all filing systems are maintained both papers based and electronic.

Teaching & Training Responsibilities

• All staff are required to be appraised by their line managers at least once a year at a personal development review meeting.
• Provide training to non-financial managers within the Trust on all matters relating to budgetary control and financial management.
• Be responsible for the management of staff within the Management Accounts Team.
• Act as a mentor for junior staff who is actively undertaking accountancy training.
• Actively participate in the annual performance review to identify personal development needs.

Line Management/Supervisory Responsibilities

• Directly manage and develop the Management Accountant and other support staff.
• Ensure that objectives of those staff are reflected through personal development plans.
• Ensure that staff recruitment and selection procedures for posts within the Management Accounts teams are applied effectively.
• Deputise for the Head of Financial Management or Assistant Director of Finance where necessary.

Financial Responsibility

• Continually look to improve by implementing new ways of working and cascading these changes to other Finance Teams where relevant.

Research & Audit

• Contribute towards the Trusts internal & external audit processes.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Fully Qualified CCAB or CIMA accountant and significant equivalent experience in a relevant management accounting role

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Significant recent financial management experience within a large organisation
• Experience of managing and supervising staff within a Finance department
• Strong working knowledge of all aspects of management accounting, budgetary and financial planning, variance analysis and financial reporting
• Knowledge of accountancy policies & procedures, understanding of the NHS Financial framework and data protection legislation
• Strong IT skills, experience using Microsoft Office suite (Excel and Word)
• Experience of supporting service lines in developing and evaluating business cases
• Experience in the identification and monitoring of divisional cost improvement plans

Skills

Essential

• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build and maintain effective working relationships
• Ability to advise and influence others
• Demonstrate being well organised and having the ability to prioritise own workload
• Able to work under pressure, meet objectives and produce high quality work within tight and potential conflicting deadlines

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration.

How to Apply

If this opportunity interests you, head to the company’s official website for full details — click here to submit your application.