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With an ageing population in the UK, the need for greater care services is rapidly increasing. As the care industry in the UK is worth an estimated £8 billion per year, it is a clear sign that this is a sector that is growing and flourishing. Franchising provides a unique opportunity for potential buyers to tap into the market whilst simultaneously receiving guidance and support. Not only is a care franchise a smart and lucrative investment, it is a chance to open a business that is not only personally rewarding but also improves local communities.
Kare Plus is a growing franchise network based within the ever expanding healthcare sector. Their model puts franchise owners at the forefront of healthcare needs within local communities, across the UK. With over 30 years of operating in the industry, Kare Plus is one of the most experienced healthcare franchises in the UK boasting over 70 Kare Plus franchises across the country, and more internationally.
Read more about Kare Plus here
In this week's Franchisor Q&A, we look at what makes Kare Plus unique, their response to COVID-19 and their plans for the future.
What makes your franchise stand out?
Kare Plus has been a provider of exceptional nursing, care and support services since 1989.
Following new ownership in 2010 and subsequent rebrand, the Kare Plus network has since strategically expanded from 3 to 70 offices across the UK and beyond, delivering multi-service healthcare staffing solutions; recruiting, training and supplying high standards of nursing, care and medical staff to the public and private sector, hospitals (including the NHS), nursing and care homes, as well as a wide range of medical and non-medical services to people in their own homes, including complex and live-in care services.
Aided by a proven business model and an experienced and passionate support team, Kare Plus has developed a broad range of services which achieve the high standards of quality our customers expect. These services grow and expand year on year, ensuring our franchise owners can further capitalise on demand.
The unique selling point of the business model is that crucially, there is minimal national competition from other business who offer a multi-service option to its customers; and indeed, to its potential franchisees. By being able to provide a wide variety of staffing solutions enables the not only more choice for our customers but also multiple revenue streams for our offices. This also means that where other franchisors will set you up with a business, we will support you to grow and adapt to your local market.
A combination of established nursing and care home contracts, fundamental service offerings and an award-winning marketing and business development support team, empowers franchisees to swiftly launch and develop their profitable healthcare franchise.
Everyone’s needs are unique and with that we understand that everyone wants something different from the care and support they receive. By continually improving the accessibility and enhancement of the care we can provide we are able to support our franchisees to meet the ongoing needs and wants from those in their local community.
The Kare Plus mission: “To deliver outstanding nursing, care and support to local communities, nationally”
Q2. Why is it worth investing in your brand?
At Kare Plus we believe that by working in partnership with the wider care sector, nationally and locally, we can build positive relationships and deliver real, workable solutions to today’s challenges. As a business that is owned by former franchisees, we understand the importance of dedicated support, mentoring and operational guidance.
Our model is structured to ease you into your local healthcare environment. You will start off by recruiting and supplying quality staff to healthcare establishments in your area. Once you have established yourself within your territory, we will work with you to expand your offering to include homecare services.
By supporting you to deliver multiple high-quality services, the Kare Plus model ensures diversity of income and new opportunities and most importantly a future proof investment.
We aim to inspire growth and development through continual collaboration and the sharing of best practice with the Kare Plus network, the most recent evidence of this was at our most recent Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony KPAC2019.
Q3. How is your franchise adapting to the current COVID-19 crisis?
In franchising one of the first things we need to teach our business owners to do is ‘surf’. Of course, we mean this in a metaphorical sense but getting into business is one of the most exciting, yet challenging tides we will ever face.
This being said, not one person in the world could have comprehended that we would be faced with the challenge of a global pandemic in 2020 and by keeping our surfing analogy in mind, Covid-19 seems to come as quickly as a tsunami and for some sectors will have a devastating impact that may be hard to come back from.
Whist the severity of COVID-19 has brought many industries to a halt, the healthcare sector is one that has to endure and we have had to ensure that our effectiveness as a care and support provider to all local communities is maintained.
Kare Plus is still open for business and as we understand the importance of technology, over the years we have invested substantially in the ongoing development of our systems, further backed by an underpinning commitment of continuous and sustained investment within such.
This approach aided by a strategic contingency plan, enhanced policies and procedures and access to training, we have been able to support our business owners to transition and evolve their businesses to ensure they too remain open for business.
By always thinking to the future, we have also been able to maintain the functionality from our support team to ensure that we are there when our business owners need us. This support is accessed by several alternative means ranging from phone calls to video conferencing (Zoom, MS Teams), email, and text communication and how to guides to name a few.
We have also been reviewing our plans, in line with official government advice, every 48 hours to ensure that the most appropriate support and guidance is shared with our offices, maintaining the effectiveness and safe delivery of our services.
As a brand we will continue to be armed with our surf boards and we will always have an ongoing commitment to ensure we have all the tools in place to ride this tide together.
Q4. What extra support and assistance are you offering your franchisees during this time?
This question can only be answered comprehensively as the attention to detail in this area has been extensive:
The support and commitment we provide to our network of offices is exceptional, unique and above all else continual. We have continued to work with each franchise owner to provide support in the areas which are most important to their business and during this time, these needs have become very diverse indeed!
To ensure that we can offer tailored support we are continually implementing and developing an effective strategy in response to changing message from the central government.
It is also important that our businesses have access and a clear understanding of these key updates and we have ensured these are communicated clearly and effectively to all our businesses. Such channels include communication hubs and weekly conference calls hosted by various leaders of our operational functions. This is in addition to updates in newsletters, on social media and web platform updates.
We have also had to ensure that the infection control guidelines are always adhered to and with the UK struggling to access Personal Protective Equipment, we have issued advice on the appropriate use of PPE during these times. Furthermore, we have expanded our national providers for PPE to ensure our businesses and staff haven’t had to go without.
Since the pandemic began, many business sectors have suffered due to the Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent restrictions put in place. As a leading healthcare provider within the UK conversely, Kare Plus has found strength in this unprecedented time of economic weakness.
As a franchisor it’s imperative now, more than ever, we need to support our franchisees in the promotion and advertisements of such positions. This was the catalyst to Kare Plus launching a national radio recruitment campaign in partnership with Bauer Media.
Recruitment is always a critical activity for a healthcare organisation and when we find ourselves in challenging times with an increase in demand it has never been more important.
During the current climate we felt digital listening was a fantastic opportunity for us to increase our brand awareness across our franchise locations. Radio advertising is known to be one of the most trusted mediums of advertising and we are confident that this new campaign will support our national network of offices to help get more people into care so we can continue to grow and support local communities, nationally.
Click Here to listen to our radio advert
Here at Kare Plus, we know our strength falls to our frontline staff. Therefore, we have put extra measures in place to promote positive physical and mental health and wellbeing. Such examples include guidelines on how to recognise symptoms of COVID-19, and how to maintain robust infection control practices. We have also launched our Employee Mental Health Support Service in partnership with Able Futures, designed to recognise mental health issues such as health anxiety and stress, both work and non-work related. This is a service that will remain in place, even after COVID-19.
To ensure we can continue to support with an increase in demand, we have adapted our recruitment and compliance process for the interim. As part of our on-going business contingency processes all face-to-face meetings, training and interviews will now be conducted by video conference or other means, but always ensuring our compliance remains intact with the expectations of our customers.
Thanks to key improvements with our training and the recent introduction of our new training partners, we have been able to issue amongst the many courses offered, specifically tailored virus prevention modules to all staff, this allows us to ensure that our staff are all aware of best practices.
Everyone needs a bit of positivity and at Kare Plus we know we are stronger together and that’s why we have also developed a Facebook page for all employees, whether from head office, franchise offices or front line staff where we can share posts, memes and raise positivity.
As a franchisor we will continue to enhance and develop our support structure in line with the needs of our businesses and that of the sector.
Q5. What plans do you have for the franchise over the next few years?
Since the pandemic began, many business sectors have fallen victim to the turmoil of Covid-19. However, the healthcare sector has seen an increase in demand during these challenging times.
As a leading healthcare provider within the UK, Kare Plus has found strength in this unprecedented time of economic weakness and continues to support local communities across its national network of franchised offices.
But even with over 70 offices across the UK there are still many local communities who do not have a Kare Plus to call upon.
Therefore we are keen to further expand our market share, diversify our services further and grow our network of offices across the UK and take one step closer to becoming the market leader for quality care and support services, a challenge we know we can achieve by working with our exisiting network and members of our network yet to come.
Q6. What skills are important for your franchisees to have?
Previous experience of working in the healthcare isn’t required however we would look to engage with people who have and are of:
- Of good character
- Of good health
- An entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to deliver quality care
- Passion and enthusiasm (good interpersonal skills)
- Possess business knowledge and management and where possible - experience in sales, operations and marketing
- Has managed a team of people previously
- Understands the level of commitment and can apply 100% of their time to the business
- Lives within an hour and a half travel time to the territory
- Is looking for an opportunity which will grow and develop into a large multi-faceted business.
Click here to learn more about the franchise opportunities at Kare Plus