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Newcastle-based urgent healthcare provider grows turnover past £50m mark

Newcastle-based Vocare, the largest GP out-of-hours and urgent care provider in the North East, has grown turnover to £52m following the successful launch of new services in April this year.

This represents a 52% increase on the £34m of turnover that Vocare will report for the financial year ending 31st March 2015.

Vocare has grown from a turnover of £10m in 2008 and the company is anticipating that turnover will reach in excess of £75m by 2017.

As part of its planned growth strategy, during 2014, the Group secured contracts to deliver GP out-of-hours, NHS 111 services and urgent care services to more than 1.3 million patients in York, Scarborough and Ryedale, Somerset and East Leicestershire and Rutland.

Together, the contracts are worth £17m and see Vocare work in close collaboration with the NHS and local healthcare providers to deliver services to more than 4.5 million patients nationally, including 1.5 million patients in Northumberland, Teesside, North Tyneside, Newcastle and South Tyneside.

New partnerships across the UK have led Vocare to offer more employment opportunities at the company’s headquarters in the North East. Vocare started operating as Northern Doctors Urgent Care (NDUC) in 1996, before expanding to include Staffordshire Doctors Urgent Care (SDUC) in 2012 and Bath and North East Somerset Doctors Urgent Care (BDUC) in 2014.

In 2015 they have expanded to Yorkshire, Somerset and East Leicestershire and Rutland, trading as Yorkshire Doctors Urgent Care (YDUC), Somerset Doctors Urgent Care (SDUC) and East Leicestershire and Rutland Urgent Care (ELRUC) respectively.

Since 2012, the number of people employed by Vocare has increased from 950 to 1800 – an increase of 89 per cent. A further 600 jobs have been created as a result of the recent partnerships in Yorkshire, Somerset and East Leicestershire and Rutland, with 25 of these in the North East.

Commenting on the company’s success, John Harrison, Chief Executive of The Vocare Group, said: “Vocare has experienced a period of strong growth, securing a number of new partnerships across the UK by offering enhanced quality services that offer good value for money to the NHS and the public.

“We are on track to double in size organically by 2017. We are already looking beyond at further opportunities for growth through diversification and will soon be looking for investment to help us realise our aims.

“Our focus is to improve access to urgent healthcare for minor injuries and illnesses and to ensure that patients get the right treatment, at the right time and in the right place for their needs.

“In order to do this successfully, we are working in close collaboration with CCGs and local healthcare providers to deliver a quality service to patients while focusing on innovating to help us deliver things better and faster than ever before.”

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