Amber Biesse and Matt Fitton were living in Canada when they first saw the bright pink cars with the words 'Care for Seniors' written along the side.
It was 2017. Amber said, "Let’s look them up."
“It turned out Nurse Next Door was a franchise looking to expand to Australia - it was serendipity. They were all about purpose, and we were looking to build something meaningful and scalable,” she said.
Fast forward eight years, and the Melbourne-based home care services franchise Nurse Next Door has been named Franchisor of the Year at the inaugural Franchise Industry Awards.
After securing the rights to the business, in 2019, Nurse Next Door was just a single local operation in Australia. Today, the franchisor has a national network of 57 franchise partners, 77 territories, and nearly 3,000 caregivers delivering aged and disability care. They are on track to be in 100 territories by the end of the year.
Amber and Matt accepted their prize at a ceremony in Sydney. “It was like the Oscars!” said Amber.
With a strong commitment to four key values - purpose, trust, resilience, and care - many of their franchisees are nurses or have lived experience with disability, and are selected not just for their capability, but for their compassion.
“In this business, heart matters,” said Matt.
The couple say the franchise model has allowed rapid, localised growth while maintaining strong central support. “There’s no way we could’ve scaled this quickly under a traditional model,” Matt said.
Franchise Council of Australia CEO Jay Westbury (above right) said Nurse Next Door "is exactly the kind of story we love to see in franchising — a business that’s not only growing rapidly but also delivering real social impact."
Amber said, “The demand for care is only going to increase - and we’re ready to meet it.”
