Health recruiter on big expansion

By TOM CLARKE

A New Zealand firm in the medical recruitment field plans to become a leading player in the international market, with "pioneering" assessment techniques.

Geneva Health International, with 55 to 60 staff in Auckland, Wellington and London, is expecting a first-year turnover of $12 million and an annual growth of 30 per cent. It has a growing presence in Australia and Canada.

Geneva was previously Lampen Healthstaff, which was set up in 1997. The name change has come with the firm's acquisition of Medstaff International and its recent separation from the Lampen Group.

The rest of the group has been sold to TMP Worldwide, said to be the world's largest recruitment advertising agency.

The founder of the Lampen Group, Roger Lampen, is the chairman of Geneva and a former nurse and hospital senior administrator, Josephine Wallis, is the chief executive. They formerly ran Lampen Healthstaff.

Ms Wallis says that the recruiting industry within the New Zealand health sector has historically been quite fragmented, with a lot of small niche players. The new company recruits senior managers, medical specialists, and nurses here and overseas.

"There is a considerable flow of candidates from all these fields right around the world and we will be operating in New Zealand, Australia, North America and the United Kingdom, offering the same service lines in all those markets," she says.

"We have made London another hub business like Auckland, which means we can source candidates from New Zealand, Australia and North America for the UK market, but we are also able to source from the UK for our other three markets as well."

Ms Wallis says that Geneva Health International is one of the few health staffing companies covering such a broad range of markets.

The company has something very different to offer, she says.

"Most of what we did with Lampen Healthstaff in New Zealand was very pioneering stuff and when we've taken that overseas and demonstrated it to health administrators we've wowed quite a lot of clients in terms of the way we test our nurses and doctors," she says.

"We actually test them on their clinical skills with a competency matrix process we've developed, which is specific to the health staffing industry. We think this is a unique assessment tool that ensures that employers get the right health professional both from a clinical competency point of view and also from a personality point of view."

Ms Wallis says that the internet will have a "very big part to play" in the firm's plans. She expects to make details of its internet system public in another two or three months.

Josephine Wallis was born in Britain and has a practical background in nursing, management and staffing. She first came here in 1987, and returned soon after to take up a supervisory role at Auckland Hospital.

She completed a diploma in health management from Auckland University, became a member of the senior management team at Mercy Hospital, then was headhunted by Mr Lampen to help set up and run Lampen Healthstaff.