Local company recognised as a healthy workplace

Carewatch is a Brighton based company established in 1993 which sells care home franchises - how Thatcherite is that! I didn't realise that caring could be supplied via a Macdonalds business model, but there you go. There are over 100 Carewatch franchises in the UK, one of which is located in Irlam.

In 2001 Carewatch was purchased by Hatfield based Nestor Healthcare PLC. Nestor seem to offer a multifarious range of social service contracts from health care to criminal records checks, filling the gaps left by the privatisation of local authority and NHS services

As their website points out, the UK has an ageing population, which means there is profit to be made from pensioners, though one wonders where all the carers are going to come from in the future, if most of us are already banged up in a home. Nestor have the answer, because they also operate Worldwide Healthcare Exchange, a sort of recruitment agency which brings nurses from developing countries to the wealthy UK.

Nestor also appear to be involved in the British Nursing Association, which has stood accused (by the National Audit Office) of supplying substandard agency nurses and doctors back to the NHS at inflated costs. According to Red Pepper magazine Nestor also created Forensic Medical Services, which supplies medical care to private prisons run by Group4.

I guess all we have to look forward to in our old age is privatised world of care homes all controlled by one big company. One way of damaging Nestors plans and profit projections on the Stock Exchange, however, is if we all kill ourselves at 50.

Source: Business News Local company recognised as a healthy workplace; http://www.redpepper.org.uk/KYE/x-kye-Mar2002.html