Victoria’s Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) has announced a joint venture with China’s Zhongshan College in Jiangsu Province, north of Shanghai. The partners will develop and operate an aged care facility that will include 1,500 integrated care places, a 400 bed hospital, all with links to the college’s education faculty. RDNS and the college will develop, operate and manage the facility, including training, deployment and management of the care staff.

RDNS CEO, Steve Muggleton, is familiar with large-scale care delivery following his leadership of Blue Care in Queensland for nine years – the state’s largest care provider. RDNS has a track record of healthcare training in China. It did the hard yards of establishing a corporate entity there approaching two years ago and has been winning business with private universities and care operators with its 120+ care related training courses. Australian Mandarin speaking staff both visit China plus host visitors here, with an emphasis on Train the Trainor programs.

The Victorian government called on RDNS to be part of its Super Trade Mission to China where it focused on five strategic industry sectors: food, beverage and agribusiness, tourism, ICT, sustainable urban design and health and aged care.
The RDNS joint venture with Zhongshan College is one the most successful outcomes of the mission.
As a side interest Muggleton recently joined Aveo Healthcare Limited (previously Forest Place) as a non-executive director to provide guidance to Aveo in building its care services for village residents.