SUCCESS COMES WITH CARING

FROM DOMINION POST, OCTOBER 10, 2011

Twelve years ago Miranda Smith arrived home from a three-year OE and spent a summer "procrastinating" about what to do next.

At the end of a summer spent on the beaches of Taupo and Hawke's Bay the 24-year-old had a short, sharp conversation with her father that prompted her to start a business that today employs 14 staff, oversees about 250 contracted carers and is growing from strength to strength.

Miranda, now 37, runs Miranda Smith Homecare from Hawke's Bay, where she lives with her husband Campbell Thornton and three sons Max, 5, Gus, 4, and five-month-old Jimi.

The business has offices in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland, where Miranda started the business in 1999, and with provincial satellite offices can offer care nationwide.

It all started in that summer of 1998.

"I basically got told by my father to get off my bum and do something. I said 'OK, I'll start a home care agency'. I think I just blurted it out because that's what I'd been doing in London.

"I'd definitely been thinking about it but I was 24. I wasn't really too concerned."

After the talk with her father she met Wellington businessman Neville Young.

"Over a glass of wine on his deck he told me to just get into it. I think I just needed someone to just point me in the right direction. At that age you think 'how on earth am I going to do this?'. He's been quite a mentor for me,' "

She moved to Auckland, rented a house in Remuera, and started providing her service.

Miranda Smith Homecare now cares for more than 150 clients, about a third of whom need 24-hour care. She expects the client base to double or triple in the next two to three years.

"Demand is becoming higher and higher with less Government funding and more people needing care and realising home care is an option," she said.

"We find people weigh up what it would cost them to go into a rest home or a retirement village compared to maybe having 10 hours' care a week. If you only need a couple of hours' care a day then home care is way more affordable," she said.

"With private care everything revolves around your reputation. If you've got a good carer you're going to keep them. One of the advantages of being a private agency is we can pay staff and charge clients what we see as fair," she said.

Two years ago she and Campbell decided to move back to Hawke's Bay.

"Being here I'm much more focused on where I want the business to be and how I want it to get there. In Auckland I tended to get caught up with the day to day stuff.".

She runs the first of the company's satellite centres from Havelock North, meaning clients and needs assessors and others can visit her in person.

Eventually the company will have about 30 such centres.

"Regionally there is a real lack of these type of services compared to the big cities," she said.

She has no plans to move from Hawke's Bay. "The role I have can be done from anywhere."