Care UK

Care UK have been delivering health and social care services throughout the UK for more than 30 years with their experts working across more types of care services than any other organisation in the UK. They are an award winning company and one of the UKs largest independent provider to the NHS, and we work together to take healthcare services closer to where people live and work, increasing the efficiency and quality of the services delivered and help to reduce waiting times. Their healthcare services include – Treatment centres, GP practices, NHS walk-in centres, GP out-of-hours, Prison health services, NHS 111 and clinical assessment and diagnostics facilities.

Their Residential Care Services deliver care to 6,500 people every day across our 115 homes & day care centres throughout the UK. They provide an impressive range of care services to older people from specialist care and support for people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, respite care, nursing care and end of life care. At the heart of their philosophy is that they deliver person centred and activity based care and their ethos is to enable people to live healthier, more independent and more fulfilling lives.

At the time Harcourt Matthews worked with Care UK internal reviews of existing and new businesses identified the need to leverage higher calibre and quality staff for the head office and divisional accounting & finance functions. The Group Financial Controller sought to make step changes in the level and capability of the head office finance team based in Colchester, Essex

Several key objectives were highlighted, including:

  • Development & replenishment of the existing team and the increase in depth of the financial technical capability & the calibre of individuals within the organisation which has under gone growth and business transformation
  • Identifying commercially and technically focused individuals to evolve best practice in Accounting & Finance, specifically in Group reporting and transactions, planning & analysis, forecasting, reporting and commercial financial control

Specific recruitment assignments were actioned including the successful recruitment of a Group Accounts Payable Manager due to an incumbent relocating out of the region, leaving a significant gap in the team. During their time in the role, the incumbent had made significant steps in developing the integration of AP into the business so that the various divisions sought advice & partnership from the Accounts Payable function. Our brief included:

  • Establishing the availability of relevant high calibre blue chip candidates in the local marketplace
  • Benchmarking of a competitive remuneration package
  • Identifying a target list of suitable local organisations to conduct a head hunting campaign

As a result of success we won the opportunity for ongoing recruitment support to the business at Group and divisional level.

This has resulted in supporting the recruitment of several qualified accountants & part qualified accountants and senior accounting transactions staff for both group and divisional finance teams.
Jobs recruited for include: Interim, temporary & permanent

Accounts Payable Supervisor
Financa Operations Supervisor
Finance Manager
Finance Manager – Residential Division
Finance Systems Manager
Finance transactions Manager
Group Accounts Payable Manager
Group Chief Accountant
Group finance & Reporting Administrator – Agresso
Group Financial Accountant
Group Payroll Controller
Group Planning and Projects Accountant
Group Reporting Accountant
Invoicing & Credit Control Manager
Management Accountant
Senior Commercial Analyst

Harcourt Matthews has established several recruitment campaigns and range of candidate sourcing processes to attract a wide range of candidate types encompassing:

  • Accessing our network & extensive CV database, existing contacts and gaining new referrals / recommendations
  • Accessing several jobsite CV databases covering the active UK candidate market
  • Advertising on several job boards
  • Using our internal resourcers and several 3rd party outsourced research businesses contracted to identify and to supply scarce candidate resource (passive & non active people)
  • Specific sector headhunting campaigns complementing the above approach
  • Messaging programmes to specific accounting & finance trained CIMA, AAT, ACCA and ACA individuals who fulfilled the Accounting & Finance brief