Case Study: The Good Care Group

Headquartered in London, The Good Care Group is an at-home care services provider. Read the case study below to learn how the group has successfully scaled its services, with support from BGF.

Outstanding care

Watching her grandmother suffer from dementia inspired serial entrepreneur Fiona Lowry to start The Good Care Group in 2009. The company now provides care for people living with Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, among other conditions.

“My grandmother declined rapidly when she went into a care home,” Fiona says. “When it came to my father, I realised he had only ever lived in two houses. I hated the thought of putting him into an institution, however nice it was. I wanted him to be able to stay at home with his dignity and independence.”

The Good Care Group offers a professional live-in care service which enables people to stay in their homes for as long as they want and avoid moving into residential care. Regulated and approved by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with an “outstanding” rating, The Good Care Group provides full-time and respite care and employs more than 1,000 professional carers who receive market-leading training to ensure the highest standards of care.

To help her build the company, Fiona focused on finding the right people, starting with her team and then looking at investors. She already had experience in running a business. She had previously spun-out Merlin Communications from the BBC in 1997 and co-founded Oracle Care in 2005 to provide support to children with complex needs. She made one acquisition before meeting with BGF to discuss what support was available.

Going digital

BGF invested £2.5 million in The Good Care Group in 2016 to fund investment in marketing and technology and explore the acquisition pipeline.

“We did a major investment in digitising all our care processes,” Fiona explains. “This enabled us to monitor care plans and interventions more thoroughly, such as proactive UTI [urinary tract infection] testing and management. Overall, the technology helped us to improve our service.”

Value creation

Following BGF’s £2.5m investment in 2016, The Good Care Group received an outstanding rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). BGF’s funding and support allowed The Good Care Group to:

• Invest in marketing and technology
• Digitise its care processes
• Expand its at-home care services

BGF exited its minority stake in the firm in 2019, when The Good Care Group was acquired by facilities management provider Sodexo UK. The exit resulted in strong returns for all shareholders, including a significant number of employee stakeholders.

“We achieved a phenomenal amount over the past 10 years, accelerated by BGF’s support and funding,” said Fiona.