All credit to West Yorkshire Ambulance Service (WYMAS) for moving into an area where intervention was required to tackle the growing problem of a shortage of nurses and doctors in the district's hospitals.

The fact that it currently deals with 15,000 requests a week from hospitals to fill vacant shifts is clear enough evidence of the real need for a staff recruitment agency like the one set up by Wymas in November 2000, NHS Professionals. The way it has conquered two-thirds of the market demonstrates how strong demand is for the sort of service it provides.

But the current crisis in which NHS Professionals finds itself, with debts of £10 million, also shows the dangers of heading into new markets without proper preparation and planning. It seems that those behind it did not have the experience to deliver a business plan that was able to cope with such rapid expansion which saw its annual expenditure balloon from £40 million to £135 million a year. Its debt is a direct result of mismanagement, which has led to serious cash-flow problems and inadequate commission being charged to cover costs.

It is a great shame that the problems were not fully appreciated and tackled before the District Auditor became involved and discovered that "insufficient attention was paid to proper operational and financial controls".

Now they have been identified it is important that a sound business plan is established and proper procedures are put in place to turn this important service into the successful business it clearly has the potential to be.