Posted on: 9 February 2022
Jonathan Webb has been appointed as the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) Director of Finance. Jonathan’s appointment has been confirmed following an open and comprehensive recruitment process involving West Yorkshire partners and stakeholders. This is subject to Parliament confirming the statutory responsibilities of ICBs as anticipated from July 2022.
Jonathan is currently the Chief Finance Officer/Deputy Chief Officer for NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group where he has worked since May 2018. During this time Jonathan has also been the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Lead Director of Finance.
Under his leadership the Directors of Finance and Chief Finance Officers have come together as part of the West Yorkshire Finance Forum to manage our collective resources. This has led to many successes which include securing over £300m of additional capital resources for West Yorkshire as part of a collective bidding process and delivering a balanced financial position across the NHS in 2019/20, for the first time in many years. This attracted a further £30million of incentive funding. This collaborative way of working has continued over the last two years where the Partnership has again managed its collective resource successfully.
Jonathan is a qualified accountant with nearly 30 years NHS experience. He has also held roles in acute hospitals, community services, mental health and learning disabilities as well as in NHS England working at a national and regional level 2.
We anticipate Jonathan joining the Partnership in his new role in the coming weeks. He will lead our finance directorate, working closely with partner organisations and with the support of the independent non-executive director finance role for our integrated care board.
As a member of the board, he will hold collective responsibility with directors for the financial performance and for demonstrating the highest standards of financial probity. Facilitating the use of our system’s resources to ensure the biggest difference can be made from our investments, including the social and economic value of the money we spend, is an important role. We are confident that Jonathan, alongside the finance director forum, will make a huge difference to our ambitious, successful, award-winning system.
Jonathan said: ‘I am absolutely delighted to be joining the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board at this pivotal time. I have seen the real differences that can be made for our populations and patients from working in partnership at West Yorkshire and place, and how we manage our resources can make such a huge difference’.
Our Partnership belongs to everyone, including providers, places, and communities. Jonathan’s role will include maintaining and developing strong connectivity with place-based and provider collaborative clinical leadership, including the place-based committees of the ICB. We have excellent leaders across all levels, and I am sure you will continue to support Jonathan in his new role.
Jonathan is one of four executive director roles for the ICB. Whilst getting our structures and governance right is crucial, integrated care is about practical, real improvements to care and population health. The next steps include the appointment of the ICB Designate roles of medical director, people director posts later this month, as well as the announcement for the successful nursing director role; the place-based committee chairs and members this month and four independent non-executive ICB members into next month. We will update you on these important appointments as soon as we can, following open recruitment processes.
Our thanks to partners and stakeholders involved in the recruitment processes for these important roles, and for your continued support in making joined up care a reality for the people and communities we serve and the colleagues we work alongside. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with you all as we move into the next phase of the design and delivery of our West Yorkshire Partnership.