NHS Curb On Agency Nurses Forces Leading Firm Into Red

The fast-expanding nursing business owned by one of Scotland’s leading female entrepreneurs has slipped into a loss after the NHS cut back on its use of agency nurses.

However, founder Ann Rushforth yesterday said her Dunbartonshire-based ScotNursing business was operating profitably again in its current financial year.

“The size of our nursing market is much smaller than it was a few years ago because the NHS is doing more and more in-house, although I would say that situation has now stabilised,” she said.

“But, at the same time, the domiciliary care side of the business is growing extremely fast, as is our occupational health business. We now provide health MOTs, dare I say it, the way BUPA does for company employees. This is beneficial to companies and the workers.

“The homecare part of business is, I would say, challenging but profitable. It seems to be what people want as an alternative to residential home care, particularly for the elderly and the severely disabled.”

During the year Rushforth acquired the controlling stake in Edinburgh-based Robinson Medical Recruitment, a provider of specialist operating theatre and intensive care staff, which Rushforth said was also an expanding market, and Milngavie-based Care Management, which it bought out of liquidation.

Nonetheless, ScotNursing, which remains the biggest player in Scotland’s private nursing sector, posted a loss of £49,230 for the year to the end of March 2007, compared with a pre-tax profit of £125,500 the year before.

However, the company’s 2006 profit had been bolstered by gains on fixed asset sales, which at the time had reversed two years of losses.

In 2006, ScotNursing was sold to Health and Lifecare Options for £620,000, an operation also owned by the entrepreneur, and has since become her ultimate parent company.

Rushforth yesterday said the parent company had made “a very small loss”, although its accounts were not yet available at Companies House.

Turnover at ScotNursing, which last November secured for the third time the Scottish Prisons Service contract, fell to £10.6m, compared with £10.8m the previous year.

The latest decline occurred in the year after which former midwife Rushforth retook control of the company she founded in 1987 by buying out Aberdeen Murray Johnstone Private Equity as a 35% shareholder.

That move was completed in July 2005 for a reputed £1m after what she previously described as “differences of opinion” over future strategy for ScotNursing.

The company last year also acquired Paisley-based rival Acorn Healthcare.