How to Start Your Own Healthcare Franchise

If you’re passionate about helping others, and you’d love to run your own business, why not consider investing in a healthcare franchise? Franchising is a great way to be your own boss at a lower level of risk, with franchisor support easily available to you.

As the population ages and expands, the need for healthcare services in the UK is growing. Life expectancy isn’t 65 anymore. Men live, on average, another 18.6 years beyond this, and women another 21 [Office for National Statistics]. With more people than ever to care for, particularly older people, more healthcare businesses are needed to meet the demand. 

The industry is equal parts lucrative and rewarding, and if you’re looking to get involved and start your own healthcare franchise, keep reading this article and find out exactly what you’ll need to do.

What’s a healthcare franchise?

A healthcare franchise is, put simply, a business that offers medical care and support to individuals and communities in need. When you’re looking to enter the sector, you can do so via a number of different avenues, including elderly care, recruitment and home care. You might work with:

• Older people
  
  
• Disabled people (mentally and/or physically)
  
  
• People struggling with mental illnesses
  
  
• People in need of palliative care
  
  
• Children

Should you start a healthcare franchise?

As has been touched upon, the demand for healthcare and healthcare franchisees in the UK is only on the rise, and the sector is a big one. In 2018, the government’s total expenditure on healthcare reached £166.7 billion [UK Government]. It stands to reason, then, that starting a healthcare franchise is a great way to guarantee yourself a customer base and a consistent source of revenue. Here are just a few examples of healthcare franchise businesses thriving in the industry:

• Caremark - Caremark is a well-established home care franchise that requires franchisees to make a minimum initial investment of £35,000. 

• Heritage Healthcare - To become a Heritage Healthcare franchisee, providing home care services in partnership with the family-run business, you’ll need to make a minimum initial investment of £35,994. 

• Moonstone Day Care - Moonstone Day Care is a nursery and day care franchise that creates a cosy, caring environment for children, and for an initial minimum investment of £40,000, you can become a Moonstone franchisee.

• Tezlom - This healthcare recruitment agency connects candidates and clients across the UK, and you can invest in Tezlom for a minimum of £25,000.

Beyond the level of demand, running a healthcare franchise has many different advantages, including access to comprehensive training and support, the opportunity to be your own boss and the chance to make a difference in the lives of others.

Working in healthcare allows you to nurture your desire to help others, and at the same time, earn a living. Remember: the type of help needed expands across various sectors, meaning that no matter what your talent is, you’ll be able to do some good.
— Amber Rolfe, Reed 

How to run a healthcare business 

1. Gain the necessary qualifications 

Not all healthcare franchise opportunities will require you to have any previous experience, knowledge or qualification in the sector, as franchisors will provide you with extensive training and support that covers everything you’ll need.  That said, some roles within healthcare do need experience or qualifications, particularly when you’ll be in a more direct, patient-facing role, responsible for looking after the welfare of another. Examples of qualifications you might need include:

• To work in the social care sector - You’ll need a degree in social work approved by the General Social Care Council.

• To become a healthcare assistant - You’ll need experience, or a qualification such as an NVQ or the newer QCF model.

• To operate as a homeopath - You’ll need to have completed an approved course from the Society of Homeopaths.

Once you register a business, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will check in, making sure you’re being compliant and operating morally. The CQC is an independent regulatory body that monitors all British health and social care services, from hospitals to home care providers.

2. Research the franchise opportunity and the wider sector

When you’re about to enter into a legally binding agreement with your franchisor, it’s important that you know exactly what you’re getting into, from expected financial returns to expected working hours. Before you sign on the dotted line, do your due diligence and gather all the information that you can. You can conduct your research on the market and your potential future franchisor by:

• Studying the market and identifying demand levels
  
  
• Reviewing your budget
  
  
• Attending fairs and exhibitions to get a feel for potential opportunities in person
  
  
• Looking at available franchise locations within potential franchises
  
  
• Speaking with current franchisees
  
  
• Talking through the agreement, when you reach that stage, with a legal advisor

If you can conduct meticulous research and go into a franchise contract feeling confident and happy, you’ll be starting off on the best possible note and maximising your chances of success later down the line. Finding the perfect franchise opportunity for you isn’t always easy, but once you’ve been able to, that effort is highly likely to pay off. 

3. Have passion for your work

Being a healthcare franchisee will be exciting and lucrative, but it will also be demanding, time consuming, and at times, emotionally draining. You’ll be working with people’s lives, aiming to make them as easy, restful and enjoyable as possible, and that important work won’t come without conflict, pain and struggle. Because of this, you’ll need to have real passion for your work in order to enter this sector.

You’ll need to show empathy for those around you. You’ll need to communicate effectively and create a positive presence for your clients and patients. You’ll need to be flexible, adaptable, confident and attentive. Essentially, you’ll need to care, and you’ll need to do it well.

Work is such an enormous part of modern life. If it’s important to you that your time is spent making a difference in the lives of individuals and communities, healthcare is a great industry. Every single day, healthcare workers are required to care about others.
—Ashley Brooks, Rasmussen University 

Become a franchisee with a healthcare business and enjoy a rewarding, profitable career

By now, you should have a sense of whether or not starting a healthcare business is the route into franchising that you’d like to take. If you’ve decided that it’s not, don’t stop there. Browse Point Franchise’s UK franchise directory to discover your ideal franchising opportunity across a wide and diverse range of sectors. 

If you’ve decided that it is, keep going! Discover some of the top healthcare and home care franchises in the UK.