A five-way merger has resulted in the formation of one of Western Australia’s largest nursing agencies with a claimed total staff of about 1,000 and growing.
Flex Health Service has been formed from the combination of Secure Health Management, Pic Nursing, PNA, Nursing Personnel, and J5.
The company also recently bought Jets Education and Training, a registered training organisation for nursing assistants, orderlies and other support staff.
However, there is one cloud over the deal, with Flex director Paul Rowell being sued for about $65,000 by a health-related company he was managing.
The Flex merger was constructed by Secure Health Management chief Tony Walton and dates back to the announcement of the State Government’s panel contract for nursing agency providers to government hospitals.
Secure put in a bid to be part of the panel but missed out to eight other agencies, including Bell WANA, ChoiceOne Meditemp and CPE.
Those agencies are among the larger nursing agencies in WA.
The government contract is for three years and came into effect in June.
With the government panel deal passed, Mr Walton looked around the industry and saw the opportunity to create what he saw as a “super agency”.
Each of the five agencies had its own niche market. Pic Nursing, for example, is a specialist in paediatric intensive care, while J5 deals in acute care.
Talks began on the merger in August and, six weeks later, the merger deal had been struck and Flex was born.
Mr Walton said the agency had about 1,000 staff on its books and that number was growing rapidly.
“It’s a worldwide trend that nurses are leaving their positions,” he said.
“More nurses are leaving their profession every day. We’ve got the market there for them.”
With government hospitals contractually out of bounds, that market includes aged care providers, mental health and private hospitals.
There is also a growing market for support staff.
“The reason agencies are growing is because of the flexibility they offer,” Mr Walton said.
“They allow nurses to work when they want where they want.”
He said the legal action between Mr Rowell and health-services business ACK Pty Ltd was not related to Flex Health.
That action relates to a dispute over management fees between Mr Rowell and ACK, a business that runs nursing facilities.
ACK director Jerry Markoff said Mr Rowell had been managing ACK and had agreed to a management fee of $2,000 a week.
He said the monthly amount taken by Mr Rowell over a five-month period was in dispute.
Mr Markoff confirmed the legal action had no link to Pic Nursing or Flex Health Services, only Mr Rowell.
Mr Rowell declined to comment on the matter, saying only that it was in the hands of his solicitors.
