Team24 Blog

Here at Team24 – one of the fastest growing healthcare recruitment companies in the UK - our esteemed MD, Robert Stiff, has been recently sharing the secrets of Team24’s success with MBA students at Henley Business School.

Robert addressed 73 students from this world-class business school, sharing his experiences. They benefited from his insight and advice on the intricacies of running a fast growing, high profit, sector-leading business and its long-term management.

The students heard how integral a website can play in the success or failure of any business. Robert clearly demonstrated that every aspect of Team24 is online, ensuring that its clients and employees – be it a doctor, locum doctor, hospital doctor, or nurse – benefit. Team24 places core emphasis on its web activity and constantly innovating: it recently launched Click4PrivateNursing – a site that offers high-quality private nursing services to patients, their families and healthcare providers. Robert’s insights and experience have been vital to driving the success of his own healthcare recruitment company, Team24.

As the fastest growing healthcare recruitment company in the UK, Team24 was ranked 16th in the 2009 ‘Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 awards’, and has the fastest growing sales over the past three years.

Here at healthcare recruitment company Team24, we were disappointed to read last week that the imminent implementation of the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) has been stopped. We were looking forward to working with the VBS scheme as it offered us a number of significant advantages.

The announcement means, however, that we have no choice but to revert to the current Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) system. While we appreciate that the CRB system is vitally important, it is also cumbersome.

Every person registered with us – be it locum doctor, hospital doctor, nurse - has to have a Team24 CRB disclosure, but they will also need a CRB disclosure for every other agency they work for. Each application costs £37, however, and needs to be reapplied for every year. This creates excessive paperwork and is time consuming both for the agency making the application and for the Criminal Records Bureau. There were elements of the new Vetting and Barring Scheme which overcame this current bureaucracy.

With the proposed new scheme, registration would have been portable to new positions. So, once a person was registered, their records would have been continuously updated and their status reassessed against any relevant new information that became known about them. The pro-activeness of the new scheme appealed to us as the information would be more relevant and timely.

By comparison, the current CRB system is very reactive. Our employees are contractually obliged to tell us as their employer if their CRB status changes. However where they do not inform us, we only find out about this when we apply for a new CRB disclosure.

Whilst we appreciate there are reasons why the scheme has been halted, we still feel that there is a need for a more efficient, robust system. At Team24 we would urge the government to be cautious when remodeling and diluting the Vetting and Barring System (VBS).

High-quality private nursing services for patients, their families and healthcare providers is vitally important, so as a leading healthcare recruitment company in the UK, it was only natural that Team24 launched a specific website to offer just that. Click4PrivateNursing provides information, advice and services to patients, their families and healthcare providers across the UK.

As a central source of information, the new Click4PrivateNursing website details the different private nursing services that Team24 can provide, including: Private home care; Respite care; Live-in care; Disability and Mental Health; as well as Dementia Care. Without adequate support the dramatic impact of illness on patients and their home carers is isolating and desperately hard. At Team24, we know that by providing this vital support and information through the Click4PrivateNursing website, we are responding to the growing trend and preference to care for loved ones at home for as long as possible.

Team24’s motivation for focusing on private nursing and domiciliary care also stems from our Managing Director’s very personal story. Following the diagnosis of dementia of his mother-in-law, Robert’s family was suddenly facing the stark reality of what being a carer really means. The experience demonstrated just how difficult it is to find qualified support, advice and care. Significantly, with a diagnosis of dementia, the patient's family is usually responsible for the majority of care. This meant that Robert was determined that Team24 should create bespoke service – Click4PrivateNursing - to address this huge social issue.

Click4PrivateNursing will make it easy for families and healthcare providers to access private nursing services and understand how these nursing services can help them when they need it most

Do log on and let us know what you think of the new site, and don’t forget to tell your friends and colleagues about Click4PrivateNursing!

-It’s a family business and that’s official!-

The Team24 office here in Banstead is still buzzing with excitement after winning ‘Family Business of the Year’ at the Fast Growth Business Awards! The awards ceremony in London was a real family celebration. Robert Stiff, along with his wife Catherine and children Katie, Chloe and Mark, were all present to receive the award and represent the whole Team24 family in style at the very glamorous London Marriot Hotel.

The Family Business of the Year award is sponsored by Growing Business Magazine and is awarded in recognition of family businesses that make a valuable contribution to both their local area and to the UK’s economy. Receiving this award is fantastic recognition of Team24’s core values which each member of the team works hard to maintain every day.

This award cements Team24’s recent achievements, such as being shortlisted for ‘Best Use of Technology’ at the Fast Growth Business Awards. The business was also recognised as the highest ranking Healthcare Recruitment Agency in The Sunday Times Virgin Fastrack 100 Awards in 2009.

This year is set to be even more successful than last year with two new websites already launched: Click4PrivateNursing and Click4Locums, which has increased the reach of Team24’s healthcare agency services. Providing an excellent service is a key priority for Team24 and this service is underpinned by our core family values and vision.

Celebrating the importance that family businesses have to offer both the local and national economy has given everyone a real sense of achievement at Team24. It has also enhanced our motivation to continue providing an excellent service. Family is so important to all of the team and we really try to extend that belief to all our recruits and clients!