Ambition 24hours healthcare staffing agency service for Doctors, Nurses and AHPs :-

This is the South African healthcare staffing division of Ambition 24hours - a major employment agency in the UK, with annual revenue there of over R 700 million, founded by UK healthcare entrepreneur Penny Streeter OBE.

The launch of the service in South Africa in May 2006 was in response to the critical healthcare shortage nationally, and a volume of new enquiries from locum doctors and nurses resident in the UK, working with Ambition 24hours and seeking similar temporary positions in South Africa.

Ambition 24hours is recruiting locum doctors and nurses both in South Africa and in the UK, where it has a databank of some 13,500 UK personnel. Many of these are South Africans and are keen to return home, from the requests received: “ Ambition 24hours has never recruited South African personnel to work in the UK: all South African staff arrived there through voluntary relocation and other recruitment sources,” says Penny Streeter, managing director.

With headquarters in Bellville, Cape Town, Ambition 24hours is opening offices nationwide in South Africa: see contact details . A unique feature of the service is that it is 24-hours and seven days a week. Also, the company is committed to paying staff in full, every week – in a sector where delays of several weeks are common.

Penny Streeter, former CBI (Confederation of British Industry) ‘Entrepreneur of the Year' in the UK, founded Ambition 24hours in the UK in 1996. It has been one of the fastest growing British companies (Source: UK FastTrack 100), and opened in South Africa on October 4 th 2004 with an investment of R 150 million in Cape Town, to develop additional sales and back-office resources to supplement its UK facilities.

Penny Streeter

Penny Streeter OBE is the managing director of Ambition 24hours. Founded in 1996 in the UK, Ambition 24hours is a multi-million dollar temporary recruitment agency and business process outsourcing organisation operating in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Click for media enquiries

Awards received by Penny Streeter include:-

- OBE (Order of the British Empire) 2006 New Years Honours for ‘services to enterprise’ - CBI (Confederation of British Industry) Entrepreneur of the Year, 2003 - 'Management Today' magazine, Top 100 Entrepreneurs: Top woman, and No. 13 overall for two years, 2003, 2004 - Fast Track 100 ‘Fastest Growing UK Companies’ 2004, 2003, 2002 - No.1 in 2002

Her company has branch offices accross the United Kingdom and South-Africa, nearly 200 office staff and 13,500 personnel on its books - locum doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, care assistants, teachers and social workers for major institutional service providers throughout the UK. More recently the business extended its staffing services to the oil and gas, construction and engineering sectors.

1996 Penny Streeter sets up Ambition 24hours temporary staffing agency, and soon identifies the opportunity for a 24-hour service in the nursing sector. Following rapid growth, over the next decade the company expands the service to cover locum doctors, allied health professionals, carers, social workers and teachers/ lecturers – and establishes a national network of UK branch offices

2004 Expansion into South Africa, with ‘back office’ facilities for UK and SA market: launch of an £11 million, three year investment plan in South Africa, based from 130,000 sq ft freehold premises acquired in Cape Town. Launch of SA locum and nursing agency services

Launch of domiciliary home care services: private nursing and care assistance provide directly to people at home for post-operative, geriatric, paediatric and other care. Support is available at short notice and can include specialist nursing care.

2006 First major acquisition: of South African agency NSSA (Nursing Services of South Africa): largest provider of temporary nursing personnel in the country, supplying over 3,000 staff each month. Established in 1943, with branches in all major provinces (www.nurses.co.za )