Group Chief Financial Officer — Specialist-Clinics Portfolio

The mandate

A portfolio of specialist clinics has more apparent demand than appointment capacity, yet neither utilisation nor contribution can be trusted across the estate. Session templates differ, theatre and diagnostic constraints are recorded separately, and unfilled slots may represent late cancellation, unavailable staff, equipment downtime or administrative error. The board has approved an urgent new Group Chief Financial Officer role to turn this operational ambiguity into investable choices.

The London-centred portfolio employs or engages approximately 775 people and material partners across medical specialties, nursing, diagnostics, theatres, patient access, finance and support. The CFO will lead finance, treasury, tax, control, commercial analytics, procurement economics and investment governance, reporting to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee. Clinical decisions remain with authorised practitioners, but their economic consequences must become visible and comparable.

The opening task is to rebuild the unit of analysis. Clinic-level profit and loss statements currently hide pathway dependencies: one specialty consumes diagnostic capacity, another generates procedure demand, and a third bears follow-up cost. The CFO will construct service-line views connecting referral, consultation, investigation, intervention and aftercare. Revenue recognition, clinician remuneration, consumables, denied claims, cancellations and rework need consistent treatment.

Capacity planning must join money to time. A nominally available consulting room has no value without the right practitioner, equipment, support and downstream slot. The finance team will work with operations to quantify constrained minutes, lost sessions and marginal capacity options. Proposals to extend hours, recruit a clinician or purchase equipment must show the exact bottleneck they release and how demand will convert.

Access is not reduced to maximising yield. The portfolio serves self-pay patients, insurers, employers and commissioned pathways with different authorisation, tariff and service obligations. The CFO must expose cross-subsidy and payment leakage while preserving contractual and clinical fairness. Pricing recommendations require a defensible basis and must never influence treatment recommendations or queue priority improperly.

Forecast reliability needs a different cadence. The present annual budget becomes obsolete when clinician availability, referral conversion or payer authorisation changes. The CFO will introduce rolling forecasts built from sessions, cases, acuity, conversion and collection assumptions. Variance discussion should identify a controllable driver and named owner, not explain history with broad volume and mix labels.

Cash deserves equal attention. Slow pre-authorisation, incomplete coding, disputed invoices and inconsistent patient deposits extend working capital. The CFO will trace each material denial category to its upstream cause, simplify patient financial communication and distinguish a collectible balance from an accounting asset. Collection practice must remain sensitive, compliant and appropriate to healthcare circumstances.

The capital queue includes imaging, procedure equipment, clinic refurbishment and digital access tools. Each case should account for credentialled staffing, commissioning time, maintenance, consumables, utilisation ramp and displaced activity. Post-investment reviews will compare the original constraint thesis with actual capacity and patient benefit. Repeated optimism from a sponsor will change future approval thresholds.

Control improvement cannot burden clinics with parallel spreadsheets. The CFO will set a common chart, close calendar and reconciliation standard, then retire local workarounds as data stabilises. High-risk balances, related-party clinician arrangements, procurement commitments and revenue cut-off will receive direct scrutiny. Material estimates should record their evidence, sensitivity and approval.

Procurement economics extend beyond price. A cheaper implant, reagent or maintenance contract can increase procedure time, inventory risk or clinical disruption. Finance will model total use cost with clinical and operational owners. Supplier concentration, indexation and minimum-volume commitments must be visible before commercial negotiation, with contingency costs included where continuity matters.

The CFO will strengthen the relationship between finance and medical leadership. Challenging a session pattern or product choice requires curiosity and evidence, not an assumption that clinical autonomy prevents scrutiny. Conversely, a favourable margin cannot justify unsafe throughput. The best finance leaders in this environment help practitioners see trade-offs early enough to redesign them.

Board reporting will be shorter and more decision-oriented. Measures should distinguish demand, booked access, attended activity, constrained capacity, contribution, cash and quality. Any adjustment or alternative performance measure must reconcile clearly. The committee should be able to see what changed, why it matters and what management is deciding without reconstructing the story from appendices.

What you will own

• Statutory finance, control, treasury, tax and board reporting.
• Complete pathway and service-line economics.
• Capacity-linked planning, rolling forecast and scenario analysis.
• Revenue-cycle, payer, coding and collection performance.
• Capital allocation and post-investment accountability.
• Clinician-remuneration and material commercial controls.
• Finance talent, systems simplification and succession.
• Funding headroom and downside preparedness.

The first 12 months

Within 45 days, reconcile earnings to cash, test key revenue judgements and select priority specialties for pathway economics. Give the committee a quantified view of forecast uncertainty, capacity bottlenecks and control exposure.

By month five, operate a session-based forecast, publish comparable service-line views and decide the highest-value capacity releases. Close the most material revenue-cycle leakages and establish capital benefit reviews.

At year end, deliver forecast accuracy within 5% at portfolio EBITDA and cash level, reduce aged receivables over 90 days by 30% and release at least 12% more bookable capacity from existing clinical assets. The monthly close should complete within six working days, with no unreconciled material balance older than one cycle.

What the committee will test

• Whether service economics include the whole patient pathway.
• Whether constrained capacity is measured in usable clinical time.
• Whether payer and clinician arrangements withstand scrutiny.
• Whether cash assumptions survive a referral or tariff downside.
• Whether approved capital releases the promised bottleneck.
• Whether finance leaders can challenge respectfully in clinical forums.

The person

You bring at least 28 years in finance, with recent Group CFO or major-divisional CFO accountability in multi-site healthcare, diagnostics, clinics or an adjacent regulated service. Your record includes statutory control, revenue-cycle complexity, clinician or professional-partner economics and capital allocation across several operating locations.

Candidates should demonstrate a capacity decision built from operational data, not simply a cost programme. UK healthcare and payer knowledge is important, as is confidence with boards, auditors, lenders and medical leaders. The role is onsite in London because finance must build the operating model alongside clinics rather than govern it remotely.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is GBP 350,000–520,000 plus annual incentive and long-term participation tied to forecast integrity, cash conversion, access, capital returns, control and finance succession. This permanent appointment is onsite in London and reports to the Group Chief Executive and relevant board committee. Appointment will proceed on an urgent timetable.

Confidentiality

The client, clinic estate, specialties, clinicians, payers, financial information and investment cases remain confidential. Detailed materials follow fit assessment, conflicts and signed confidentiality. Applicants must not approach likely clinic groups, advisers or practitioners to discover the organisation.