For nurse entrepreneurs

The International Council of Nursing estimates that about 1% of nurses are nurse entrepreneurs and who are we to disagree with them? It might sound an odd expression but every nurse who has ever changed a service or introduced widespread change is a nurse entrepreneur. Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, Virginia Henderson and Margaret Sanger were all nurse entrepreneurs even if they never called themselves that (and we weren’t going to be the first to tell them).

If you want to change your service, improve the way care is delivered or even set up a brand new organisation then this is the site for you. If you don’t then can we recommend Boomshine which is really funny and a great way to spend half an hour online.

There are basically three types of nurse entrepreneur:

  1. The Termite (or the insider)
    These are nurses, midwives or health visitors who are entrepreneurial employees and are sometimes referred to as intrapreneurs. They come in all shapes and sizes, can work in acute or primary care, can be any level from Staff Nurse to Director of Nursing, Ward Managers to Matrons, Clinical Nurse Specialist to Nurse Consultant.
  2. The Goby Fish (or the independent supporter)
    These are nurses, midwives or health visitors who run organisations or are self-employed providers of services with an indirect relationship to healthcare. They can be Nurse Consultancies, Expert Witnesses, Trainers, etc.
  3. The Butterfly (or the independent provider)
    These are nurses, midwives or health visitors who run organisations or are self-employed providers of healthcare. They can be running hospitals, clinics, nursing agencies, social enterprises, etc but they are no part of the NHS.

If you have suggestions for new content, resources or information, then please pop it in our suggestion box. The current most popular suggestions for this section are:

  • How do I get funding to start up a new business?

The latest 5 podcasts (10 to 14) cover a recent course on "Creating a nurse-led social enterprises in health" and the 5-parts together make up a 3-hour audio programme on how to set up a nurse-led social enterprise. Click here to access this.

Some of our most recent additions are:

You may also find Podcast 4 useful which looks at the Central Surrey model which is the first large-scale social enterprise to come out of a PCT, and covers:

  • Where the model and the idea first come from
  • The key discussions and questions in the early days
  • Involving front-line staff
  • The two-year journey from the idea to going live
  • Getting the organisational and legal structure right - the co-ownership model
  • The reaction of staff to becoming co-owners
  • How the co-ownership model works and the relationship between the Members and the Board
  • The big lessons learned from the transition process from NHS to social enterprise

Click here to access the podcast

You may also find the Royal College of Nursing publication "Nurse entrepreneurs - turning initiative into independence" useful. This publication is for nurses who are considering branching out on their own. Specifically aimed at nurses in clinical practice, educational or managerial roles, the publication includes a wealth of information to help becoming self-employed a less daunting prospect. Areas covered include information on money matters, different business opportunities, tips for success and useful organisations and contacts, making it is a useful resource aimed at pointing nurses in the right direction and helping them make a success of their new enterprise. You can download this here (pdf format 679 Kb).

For people interested in the research and evidence base on nurse entrepreneurship, you may find the following report interesting. It is a report to the National Co-ordinating Centre for NHS Service Delivery and Organisation R & D (NCCSDO) of a scoping exercise on “The contribution of nurse, midwife and health visitor entrepreneurs to patient choice” by Michael Traynor (lead investigator), Kathy Davis, Vari Drennan, Claire Goodman, Charlotte Humphrey, Rachel Locke, Annabelle Mark, Susan F Murray, Maggi Banning, Richard Peacock. You can download this here (pdf format 3.6 Mb).

For us who nurse, our nursing is a thing which, unless we are making progress ever year, every month, every week, take my word for lt, we are going back.

Florence Nightingale

Accessing finance
Innovation & creativity
Power networking
Creating an enterprise
Supporting yourself
Living the life you deserve