FEATURE


Strike the Right Balance


Providing excellent care relies on good revenues so why is profit still considered taboo by the sector, asks Amrit Dhaliwal, Chief Executive of homecare franchise Walfinch.


The homecare business is that rare thing: a chance to do good in your community and make a decent living at the same time.


But while care suppliers are always keen to stress the emotional rewards of providing care for people in our communities, they are oſten less keen to talk about the other half of the equation: the importance of profit in running a care service.


It’s almost as if profit is a dirty word in the care sector. Yet providing high-quality care to our clients, and paying decent wages to carers, both rely on us making sufficient profit.


WHY WE MUST TALK ABOUT MONEY Without decent levels of revenue, providers will be unable


to pay proper wages, or expand their services. Ultimately, revenue shortages may force them to close - and no-one benefits from that, least of all clients.


Yet some businesses in the homecare sector do not focus sufficiently on the financials. This is especially important now, when some local authorities are offering providers work at rates so low that they are little more than the minimum wage. We have heard of local authorities offering as little as £13 an hour. This is unsafe for clients and unsustainable for providers.


HOW TO GET THE CARE AND REVENUE


BALANCE RIGHT But it’s not all bad news. Some care providers are still expanding their care teams and taking on more clients. They prove that it is possible to combine the rewards of providing care to your community with making a sustainable profit.


Tiffany Meachim and Greg Renk are both successful Walfinch homecare franchisees. Unexpectedly, Greg Renk, who had not been a care sector employee, knew more about business pricing and finance before he launched his business, than Tiffany, who had worked in the care sector.


Tiffany Meachim


Tiffany is the franchisee managing director of Walfinch Mansfield. Before starting her business, she was a local area administrator for another care company. She says she knew little about the finances of running a care business until she became a Walfinch franchisee, where training included intensive work on care business finance.


START WITH SETTING A MINIMUM RATE


FOR YOUR WORK Tiffany explained: “We worked out that we should charge our local authorities £23.50 an hour for care, an increase of £1.50 an hour over the old rate, and introduced the new rate on 03 January. They accepted it straight away, with no pushback at all. We calculated that it would allow us to pay our carers £11.24 an hour, cover our business overheads and still make a profit.


“We also do private care work for which we charge £25 an hour,


or £23 for 45 minutes, or £20 for 30 minutes. That makes it more economical for these clients to buy care by the hour. They get better care as carers spend more time with them, and carers spend less time travelling between clients.” The private client rates help subsidise the local authority rates.


ACCEPT THE NEED FOR CAREFUL


FINANCIAL CONTROLS “I came from a care background and I had helped run my dad’s company but I didn’t have much experience of the business side of care,” said Tiffany. “Walfinch’s training and Ian’s experience in the corporate world were very valuable, and it helped that there was a manager at head office that I could call on for help. We also started small, so by the time we were invoicing around three and a half thousand hours of care monthly, we were well- practiced on the system.”


KEEP ON TOP OF THE FIGURES “My partner Ian and I look at the financial figures every evening


for at least an hour,” she continued. “We check how many hours of care we provided and how much revenue we earned the previous day. You must know exactly where the business is financially all the time, so I put those figures into a spreadsheet and I can immediately see how the finances are going and how much we have progressed against our targets.”


Tiffany Meachim and team - 22 -


Tiffany also processes all of the invoices from the previous week every Monday. “It takes about 90 minutes,” she explained. She


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