Business can be a high-octane world, thriving on the cut and thrust, the long hours and the singlemindedness of the entrepreneur – on the outside.
Underneath all that, as successful businessman Paul Flynn, discovered, there could well be an individual struggling physically and mentally from the demands of getting to the front and staying there.
His own story, which saw him relying heavily on alcohol and cocaine until he got clean 16 years ago, was the driving factor behind the setting up of two businesses, Addcounsel in 2016, and, post-pandemic, Orchestrate Health.
Offering expert private treatment for a range of addictive and mental health disorders, Addcounsel adopted a unique approach, treating one client at a time in luxury private accommodation, providing 24/7 medically led care. Born and raised in Leicester, Paul elected to set up the facility in London, partly because of the fact that he believes it to be the most cosmopolitan city in the northern hemisphere, but also because it is a renowned epicentre of private healthcare in Europe, with access to the most qualified mental health care professionals. The highly skilled multidisciplinary team includes doctors, psychiatrists, nutritionists, therapists, and addiction specialists.
After the pandemic, Paul wanted to make his pioneering one-client-at-a-time treatment more accessible and launched Orchestrate Health, London’s leading private community mental health service supporting patients and enabling them to be cared for online and/or at home by providing live-in mental health specialists, home assessments and daily visits from professionals within the mental health field.
Paul Flynn originally moved to London to study Business Administration and, after graduating, ran a call centre in the East End before moving into recruitment in 1998. In 2003, he set up specialist IT recruitment business Staffgroup with two others in a box-room office in Piccadilly. Business went from strength to strength and in 2006 the company was listed by The Sunday Times as one of the UK’s fastest growing companies and grew to have international offices in the UK, mainland Europe and the United States. In 2015 the business was sold to Cordant Group for £25m.
Paul said:
“By 2006, the high-octane environment and typical ‘work-hard play-hard’ sales culture within the organisation, combined with the stress of running a multi-national, was taking its toll on my mental health.
“I was starting to burn out and relying heavily on alcohol and cocaine, not just recreationally but to ‘self-medicate’ the depression that had started to set in. Business was going well but I wasn’t performing at my best and things could have been better.”
Paul was ambitious, and married with a young daughter, and wanted to be top of his game, but he was taking time off regularly, suffering the consequences of a heavy night, and he soon realised that he would have to clean his act up and he did. He’s been clean and sober since August 11, 2006.
Now nearly 50, Paul lives in southeast London with his wife and three children, and Addcounsel and Orchestrate Health have seen exponential growth year on year, with combined revenues showing growth fourfold over the last 12 months. Paul’s other business interests include his roles as investor in hyper growth cyber security company (SenseOn) and various other recruitment businesses.
“There’s a direct correlation between the point that I found recovery and the growth of the business, and after the sale of his company I started to think about what he could do next,”
explained Paul.
“My own path relied on a visit to my GP and referral to a local drugs and alcohol service, and the Cocaine Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous fellowships. The fellowships were, and still are, a lifesaver, but it wasn’t easy. I came to realise that individuals (and their families) seeking recovery require flexibility and discretion, especially if they are running multi-million-pound organisations, are in the public eye or, for cultural reasons, feel they are bringing shame upon the family.”
Addcounsel’s comprehensive treatment programmes are individually designed to ensure an unrivalled level of care. Its values are centred on kindness and compassion, with long-term recovery at its core. Addcounsel provides complete anonymity to high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and their families, for whom group recovery simply wouldn’t work. Clients are treated with hyper-individualised care in luxurious residences, however, the Addcounsel team are committed to helping them recover first and foremost, which can be challenging but highly transformative for the clients and their families. The model has proven highly successful and Addcounsel has treated hundreds of clients from around the world.
Orchestrate Health helps those individuals and families where an in-patient stay doesn’t work for them or their lifestyle. Instead, the hand-picked, specialised mental health team made up of doctors, psychiatrists, nurses and other professional therapists treat the individual in their own environment.
Paul added:
“Our teams understand that life is complex, and individuals using our services have responsibilities that mean a stay in rehab is often not the answer, so we created Orchestrate Health to provide the patient and their families with the highest standards of care available. Treatment is flexible, patient-centred and utterly discreet with the aim of helping individuals and their families to live a more fulfilling life.
“I’ve been in that situation and know how hard it is which is why I always want to find a solution, and my motto is ‘if I can’t help, I will find someone who can’.”
Find out more about Addcounsel at www.addcounsel.com or Orchestrate Health at www.orchestratehealth.com