Putting experience into practice

An experienced healthcare franchise explains what it has learnt over the last 10 years, and how franchisees will benefit.

Prestige Nursing is delighted to be making a return to franchising, and will be re-launching its unique service at the National Franchise Exhibition, held at the NEC in Birmingham during early October. Jonathan Bruce, Managing Director, explains why Prestige felt the time was right to come back into franchising ìWe originally began franchising in 1998, and had great success in attracting franchisees to work along side our established managed branch network. The majority of the original franchisee intake is still with us, and whilst they continue to own and manage highly profitable businesses, they operate in a market that has changed dramatically since 1998. We have therefore learnt a great deal about what makes a successful franchise, and with a host of new opportunities opening up within the marketplace, we felt that now was a good time to put these lessons into practice.ì

Sandy Simmonds, Franchise Manager for Prestige Nursing, takes up the story. ìFranchisees bring commitment, energy and hard work to the business, but that in itself often isnít enough. They have to be working with a company that not only has a significant presence within the market, but also has the vision and the range of services to allow it to capitalise on that presence.î Originally established in 1945, Prestige is one of the largest agencies in the sector and brings not only the benefits of a national network to franchisees, but also a range of tried and trusted services for each sector it operates in ìRisk is one of the big issues for us and our franchiseesî, comments Sandy Simmonds. ìBy helping our franchisees target both the homecare services and healthcare recruitment sectors, Prestige can offer the potential of significantly higher returns and less risk than those franchises that focus solely on domiciliary care.î

Franchisees will also benefit from Prestigeís experience in other ways, as Jonathan Bruce explains. ìOur first franchisees were able to achieve excellent growth by focusing exclusively on those activities that helped build their business. We managed their payroll and invoice functions, freeing them up to work on rather than in their business. This was critically important, and we will be offering new franchisees an enhanced service where we undertake all their recruitment administration as well, a service very few other companies offer.î

The company is also wary of expanding too fast and so diluting the support it can offer new franchisees. ìWe will be growing both our franchised and managed branches,î says Sandy Simmonds ìso our target number of new franchisees is very modest. We know from experience that it is better to have 5 very successful franchises rather than 10 average ones, and a large part of that success comes from the on-going support we can give.î

So will the Prestige Nursing franchise be for everyone? Jonathan Bruce thinks not, ìIn terms of initial investment and management fees we sit towards the top end of current healthcare franchises. However, you get what you pay for and we push our franchisees hard to ensure they are every bit as successful as they have told us they want to be.î

For more details please contact Sandy Simmonds on 0208 254 7533 or email franchise@prestige-nursing.co.uk. Prestige Nursing will be at stand F730 at the British & International franchise exhibition, 4th/5th April Grand Hall, Olympia, London.