Starting a Care Staffing Business

The main objective of a healthcare employment business is to boldly establish and focus on its principal income stream which is providing staff to its current, finding new clients and staff. Everything else is secondary. Like any other business there has to be a strong emphasis on Marketing, Operations and Compliance.

What Are the Benefits of Starting a Healthcare Agency Business?

The healthcare employment business can be a lucrative industry. It can also be chaotic as it is very much a ‘real time’ hands-on marketplace. The principal income stream is derived from selling healthcare hours to clients (be it care homes, hospitals or private individuals). A lot of your time will be taken up by looking after clients and responding to the demands of running a business. You must stay in control. The two most important factors to consider when running a Unit ConsultancyBusiness are Marketing and Operations Management. These two, as well as many other issues, are briefly covered by this guide. However, you will also receive separate, in-depth guides for these important business areas.

Implementing a successful marketing strategy will increase your brand awareness and will help to quickly grow your business. Skilled Operations Management will put your business on a solid financial footing, reduce risks and costs and improve productivity. Implement these two strategies well, and you are on your way to success. This will allow you to respond quickly to changes in clients’ needs and attitudes in your industry, and help you stay on top of your game.

Starting a Staffing Agency

Here at Unit Consultancy we can help you set up your successful temporary staffing agency, skipping the trial and error.  Speak to one of one consultants to find out how we can help you.

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Marketing

The employment agency business is a hectic venture, especially if processes are not streamlined properly. Sometimes care agency business owners get side-tracked doing the day to day urgent tasks, which includes up to dropping off staff to the client workplaces and let the vital part of the business (sales) suffer. It is important that the organisation dedicates to marketing its services without compromise, therefore a clear marketing strategy has to be put in place and adhered to. Marketing for a healthcare staffing agency is composed of two components, Recruitment Marketing and Client Marketing.

Recruitment Marketing

This is the marketing focussed on recruiting staff  into your books, creating awareness about your business to potential candidates and attracting them to register and join your company. It is very important to ensure that you have a clear marketing strategy for getting staff into your database. Below is a list of things you could do to make potential candidates aware of you company.

Recruitment is an essential aspect to your business, since this is the main product that you sell. It does not matter how great your logo looks, if you do not have the staff in your books, your business is doomed..

Traditional Recruitment Marketing

• Leaflet distribution
• Recruitment fairs
• Referral Marketing
• Word of Mouth

Online recruitment Marketing

• Social Media Marketing
• Search Engine Marketing
• Job Boards

Operations

A successful Employment Agency Business relies on a formidable operational system and processes, be it its recruitment process, client acquisition, shift bookings, shift assignment, timesheet management, invoicing, payroll and payments. Your business may be sharp in getting the client and the candidates in but if the processing and managing of these as well as the other processes in your business are not as great your business may struggle still. Information is the most important commodity that needs to be managed properly with an agency, from sales leads to financial records. Therefore, carefully planned policies and processes should be set up in your business as well as the employment of suitable software. Below is a brief of how an employment agency operates, the process involved as well as the instruments that can be used. The processes will include part of your marketing strategy.

Client Acquisition

One thing commonly overlooked by new start-ups in care is their sales process. As a company focusing on growth you need to have a clear and defined sales process. There is always a path that your sales follows depending on what channel you follow. Whether a lead has come from a telemarketing or any other channel campaign, they are likely to follow a path in your organisation until they become a regular client. Therefore, this process has to be defined and not random disjointed activities.

Client Acquisition

Now that a candidate has expressed interest in joining your company, how you process them until they start to work for you has to be clearly defined. From:

• Application
• Vetting
• Selection
• Appraisals
• Referencing
• Interviews

• DBS Checks
• Induction
• Training
• Revalidation
• Refresher training

Timesheet Management

Timesheets are equivalent to cash in your organisation, only they are not yet accepted at Tesco for now. That is how important they are to your agency, if any go missing or there is a processing delay, you run the risk of losing cash. There should be a clear timesheet management process structure from entry, submission, handling, processing and filling. You can employ relevant software to handle part of the process for you i.e. timesheet management software.

Shift Assignment

Your company should have smooth sift assignment process to your staff, from staff availability information, alerting staff about available shifts, assigning them as well upcoming shifts that they have been assigned to.

Shift Booking

Obtaining shifts from your clients: You should make it easy for your clients to book staff from you company, by either ringing them at designated times or what ever method you agree with them. Also booking confirmations should be communicated smoothly to your clients.

Accounts and Reporting

You need to know how your company is performing as well as it being a requirement to submit your company accounts every year to the HMRC. Your organisation should maintain processes that ensure smooth reporting of your business.

 

Payroll

This is a delicate part of your agency as staff need to be paid accurately and on time as well contributions to the HMRC for NI, PAYEE etc. If this is not handled properly it will affect the way your business operates in a big way, from dissatisfied staff to troubles with the HMRC. It is a great idea to use the relevant HMRC approved payroll software to handle this for you and of course someone who knows what they are doing.

Payments

Payments to your staff, supplier and the HMRC should be made smoothly. Make sure you organise a clear payments policy and processes to avoid confusion as well as inefficiency. Everyone your business owes would very much prefer to be paid on time, as much as you have to be vigilant and pragmatic about your debtors. A suitable policy and process must be established to ensure your organisation maintains a healthy cash-flow.

Invoicing

You should have a smooth invoicing process for you organisation to ensure all the time worked by your staff is accounted for and invoiced without. There are quite a few software packages in the market that can handle this for you with ease, we recommend cloud based software combined with accounting for convenience.

 

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Cash-flow Management

As mentioned on payment, your company should ensure the maintenance of a healthy cash-flow. Most start-up agencies usually face the cash-flow issue, where they struggle to pay their staff because their clients take 30 days to pay invoices, yet they have to pay staff weekly. Therefore, if there is not enough of a cash cushion, the agency business may struggle to fulfil its weekly dues, of which it may have to include other cash sources including factoring for short term finance.

Policies and Procedures

The organisation should establish policies to and procedures ensure its operations as well its position on aspects of business and how it handles certain issues as they arise. In every situation processes should be followed to deliver a desired result. The agency business as any other business relies very much on systems and processes therefore these need to be standardised in order to serve time as well achieve the desired results.

Legal

As a care agency, your business is not immune from facing legal battles, therefore you need to have your legal toolkit set up. You can speak to your personal lawyer to recommend ideal services or firms that you can affiliate with in case your company faces legal challenges in the future. The legislative and regulatory environment is complex, with a continued shift towards greater public scrutiny. To find a solicitor who can help you, you can search online for ‘Community Care Solicitors’ in your region or city.

Compliance

Depending on the services that the agency provides it may need to be registered with regulators, industry and sector bodies in order to operate lawfully. For example with the Care Quality Commission, Health watch and more. It is a must that you register with the CQC if you are delivering services directly to the services users, i.e Home Care, Live-in Care, Supported Leaving and more. Any person (individual, partnership or organisation) who provides regulated activity in England must be registered with us otherwise they commit an offence.  You only register with the CQC if you are providing a regulated service which in this case could be personal care. If you are only providing staffing services to other bodies, you are not required by law to be registered with CQC as this is not a regulated service. You can find out more about this here and here. We provide guidance on this here.

Credibility and Affiliations

As a growing employment agency, you need to ensure that your organisation adopts the relevant standards and affiliates with relevant bodies. Depending on the services you offer, below is a list of some organisation you may join. This adds to your credibility as a provider and some standards and memberships will help steer your organisation to best practice.

• REC
• UKHCA
• National Care Association
• ICO
• Investors In People
• ISO9001
• Federation Of Small Businesses (FSB)
• Skills For Care

Risk Management

Sometimes other risks including compliance and legal issues, knowingly or unknowingly breaking employment law by assigning undocumented, untrained, or unskilled staff may put service users at risk. This may lead to the investigation and legal suits by the involved stake holders, which in the worst-case scenario my lead to the agency being closed if for serious safeguarding issues. The company therefore must ensure that its processes are detailed, clear, and legitimate in case issues arise.

Care Policies & Procedures

Get up to date CQC compliant policies, which are updated regularly in line with regulatory changes ensuring your social care business adheres to the requirements at all times.

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Insurance

As a care provider you need comprehensive insurance policies in place to ensure that both clients and staff are protected fully in the workplace. These policies will cover things like alleged abuse, theft of property, errors, personal injury and so on. They combine both Employer’s Liability Insurance and Public Liability Insurance, as well as extras related to running a business. If you are looking at setting up your own care agency, then make sure that you have the appropriate insurance in place before you begin delivering services. Some of the providers featured here do offer insurance for care agencies and these are tailored to meet your needs. There are plenty of other insurers that also deal with businesses, so contact your insurance broker to find out the best option for you.

• Direct Care Insurance
• Blue Fing Group
• Thistle Recruitment Insurance
• Fish Insurance
• Towergate Insurance
• Aviva
• Capita
• Bollington

Growth and Diversification

As a healthcare employment agency there are various ways in which your company can expand and grow. Depending on your business plan, sector, and the stability of your product, you can expand into other geographic regions. Maximising your potential, experience and duplicating across the country.

Technology can now allow you to recruit anywhere and candidates can attend virtual interviews as well as online training. There are other ways to expand your business by supplying a diversified product portfolio within the same region where you are operating, especially if your company is registered to provide personal care. There are a number of specialist care services and products that your organisation can focus on.

Below are some example of what you can look into:

• Supported Living
• Supported Housing
• Respite care

• Home care
• Leave-in care
• Spot Purchasing (Readmore..)

Supplying the NHS and the Local Authorities

One of the most common questions that we get is how do agencies get in the the NHS Framework. In most cases, to supply to the NHS you will need to be in the providers list. Suppliers selected included on the Trust Preferred Supplier Listing only gain that status after a desktop exercise is conducted using a weighted evaluation against their Charge Card, Agency Commission, Quality of Submission and Number of Registered Workers they report on their tender submission. Each of the organisations considered would have gone through a full Tender Exercise and Evaluation to be awarded supplier status on the registered Framework Agreement and each of these organisations is audited regularly by the originator of that Framework Agreement.

This desktop exercise, although reviewed annually, is only carried out formally once during the life of each framework. Unless there is an irretrievable breakdown in service from selected suppliers, it is highly unlikely that any other providers will be considered for, or added to this listing for the duration of the relevant framework agreement. You can read more about this here

For Tenders you can subscribe to the following websites

• Tenders Direct
• Contracts Finder Service.gov.uk

Also, as bid writing is not a a strait forward exercise, you can seek the services of experienced Bid Writers to ensure your tender submissions make the cut. Below is a couple, but you can always search fro one within your city or location.

• Bft Consult
• Tenders-uk

Industry knowledge

One of the key aspects that determines the growth rate of your organisation is the proprietor’s skill set and knowledge. It is important that as the business grows, so should your industry knowledge, business skills and network. Also, you need to be able to adapt to both change and market trends because regulations change, and new opportunities arise where your business can take advantage. Therefore, knowledge is key for your organisation to keep up. You can search the web for relevant sources of information to which you can subscribe to. Below is a list of some publications and events you could subscribe to:

Publications

• Nursing Times
• Recruiter
• National Health Executive
• Nhs England News

Events

• UK E Health Week
• NHS Employers Events
• HEWM Learning Events
• The Health Foundation Events
• NHS england Events
• NHS Supply Chain Events
• Health Conferance UK Events
• Building Better Health Events

• Health Pulse Care Events
• London Health Conferences