starting my own nursing agency

joop123

hoping that someone can point me in the right direction.

I am currently working as agency nurse and would be interested in setting up my own agency. I am trying to find further information about how i would go about this, i have tried the web but only found american sites trying to sell me stuff.

Hope someone can help

alwaysonthego_2

http://www.csci.org.uk/care_professionals/service_providers.aspx

this may help

POORBUTHONEST

JOOP123,
Well, speaking as a nurse myself I've also given this idea some thought. There are a number of franchise packages available - but I would tread very warily, they often want a lot of money for......... not much in return. You are often just 'paying for a job' with some franchises, and can just as easily set up on your own.

Bear in mind also that the NHS restructuring over the next few years might mean that you have loads of staff on the books, but no work to offer them!

As to your original question, I don't think you need any 'licence' as such, but am not sure. The answer to success might be to find a 'niche' market outside of NHS staffing.

If you think it's possibly viable PM me -I'm not too far from Kettering - and have been mulling over various business ideas.

PBH

Savvy_Sue

You probably would need to get all your applicants CRB checked and then repeat the checks at regular intervals ...

Isn't there a Health and Social Care Council who might be able to help?

Edited to say the one I'm thinking of is the General Social Care Council, probably not relevant. But I found this on the RCN site!

joop123

thanks to both of you, have looked at both of these now, i have also found a small business enterprise scheme in my area offering business advice for free, hoping to go to see them next week.

WHA

Don't forget to factor in all the costs, such as employers NIC (12.8% of wage), employment rights, such as paid holidays, sick pay, mat/pay pay, statutory redundancy, etc, costs of preparing water-tight contracts of employment and contracts with customers, obligation to offer a stakeholder pension, employers liability insurance, costs of advertising for staff, whether you have to pay VAT as well as income tax, costs of administration, etc. I've had a couple of clients who were employment agencies and the figures just didn't stack up - neither made any money because of the associated costs that they hadn't anticipated, difficulty in engaging enough staff at a low enough cost, and difficulty in charging high enough rates to their customers. It is far too easy to see your current employer such as NHS or care home paying something like £25 per hour, and then knowing that the employee is only earning £6 per hour and thinking someone is making £19 profit - it isn't that simple. To attract staff away from existing employment or agencies, you have to pay them more and/or guarantee more work, to attract customers, you have to offer a lower charge and/or more flexible staff. You need to look at the competition, find out what they're doing wrong and make sure you can do it better and still make a healthy profit. If you just try to copy the competitor at a cheaper price, you are far more likely to fail.