Development Manager Gill Clarke explains how her experience on the Cumbria Forum has helped her healthcare company to gain a clear view of where it needs to be - and how to get there.

A Chance for Life Ltd is a complex case management and rehabilitation company that helps adults and children recover skills lost as a result of brain injury and other disabling conditions. Based in Penrith, its services cover the North of England and southern Scotland.

When Gill Clarke went on the Cumbria Forum - the business growth programme delivered by Lancaster University Management School - she was acutely aware that her company had reached a pivotal stage in its growth. What she and the senior team were less clear about was how, where and when to build on that growth to maintain both profitability and the all-important quality of service.

“We needed to grow and we needed to agree how we were going to do it,” she says. “The Forum helped us identify the potential dangers and the importance of bringing your team along with you.”

She explains how she has been able to apply what she brought back from the Forum. “We have used what we learned, taken it to team meetings and undertaken exercises which we did on the programme. We’ve opened up information to everybody – using tools like the Dashboard and the Business Model Canvas – and then fed back the results and signed them off as the way forward.”

Strategic benefits so far have included a clearer view of what can be done to address the huge need for Support Workers which is a reflection of the current crisis in social care, balanced against the need to continue with their core case management and therapy provision. As Gill says: “this has enabled us to be clear about what to focus on, where our clients are going to come from, and where we need to grow in terms of staff – because having grown from 41 to 51 staff in the past 12 months, we now envisage that we are going to grow rapidly over the next two years, to around 73.”

While the programme’s interactive workshops were particularly useful for honing business strategy, further inspiration came from the company visit to Cumbria-based playground equipment manufacturers Playdale. “Seeing how a local firm had become successful internationally, pitting itself against some big competitors, really resonated with me – especially the fact that they achieved this by sticking to their commitment of quality, both for their clients and their staff.”

Gill also emphasises how she has personally benefited from the networking opportunities that arise from Forum. “I’ve buddied up with a company that’s at a similar point in its business that we are. It’s a completely different organisation – they are landscape architects, and we are in healthcare – and yet you cannot believe the similarities of the issues we’re facing as growing companies. It’s all part of what the Forum can offer: that sense of external help being available, on a lasting basis, is really appealing.”

The Cumbria Forum, part of Cumbria Growth Hub, is a four month programme designed to help owner-managers, MDs and senior decision makers of SMEs to grow their businesses. This programme is fully funded and available to European Regional Development Fund eligible businesses. Contact Ewan Pullan on 01524 593709, email cumbriaforum@lancaster.ac.uk or visit lancaster.ac.uk/lums/cumbriaforum to find out more.

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