Camille Leavold started Abbots Care in 1995 with her mum and her sister. For roughly the first six months, the three of them delivered every visit and did all the coordinating themselves. Abbots Care now supports more than 1,000 people and has been rated Outstanding by CQC three times in a row.

In this episode she tells Mark Topps what a new agency needs before anything else: a genuine passion for care, the right advice, a proper business plan and someone who can sell. As she puts it, “If you can’t sell or market your business, you haven’t got a business.”

‍

What you’ll leave with
Camille’s answers on which type of care to offer first, where your first work and your first care workers come from, how to get to grips with CQC, and what keeps care workers once you’ve hired them.

About Camille
Camille Leavold MBE is CEO and co-founder of Abbots Care, a homecare provider based in Hertfordshire. She’s a non-executive board member of the Homecare Association and was the first person to receive the Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care Award. Her MBE recognises her work for the social care sector.

Who it’s for
People thinking about starting a homecare agency in the UK, and owners and registered managers in their first few years.

The Foundational Series is a free video series from Flock and Birdie for people starting or running a small homecare agency. In each episode, Mark Topps, co-founder of The Caring View, talks to someone who’s built one. Recorded in early 2024.

‍
‍

Starting out? Join Flock, the free community for people running homecare agencies in the UK, and put your questions to people who’ve been through it.

‍

‍

What do you need before you start a care agency?
A real passion for care comes first. Most of the people Camille has seen succeed came from a care background, or had a relative who couldn’t find good care. Then get advice. She recommends the Homecare Association, and says talking to franchise networks can help, though you don’t need to buy one. In England, you’ll also need to register with CQC before you can operate.

How do new agencies find their first work and their first care workers?
Camille calls this the chicken and egg. An agency recruits care workers, has no work for them and loses them, then wins work with no one to deliver it. At Abbots Care, the founders were the workforce. Camille, her mum and her sister covered every visit for about six months, which also showed them how the business needed to run.

Should you start with homecare, live-in care or complex care?
Start with what you know. You’ll assess people better, write better care plans and know which care workers to recruit. Camille finds it easier to recruit and keep staff for complex care, and easier to scale, but only with the right expertise. She doubts you’d get registered without it. Live-in care needs a different kind of care worker from visiting homecare. You can add services later, because your paperwork and systems carry over.

How do you get to grips with CQC when you’re new?
Read CQC’s own guidance. Then read published inspection reports at every rating, from Inadequate to Outstanding, until you can see what each standard looks like in practice. Camille still does this. Courses run by former inspectors and Homecare Association resources help too. This episode was recorded before CQC started replacing its assessment framework, so check what’s changing at CQC before you prepare.

How can a small agency keep its care workers without spending much?
Ask them what matters. When Abbots Care surveys its care workers, being able to make a difference ranks above pay. Camille’s low-cost fixes are:

• rotas that leave enough time for every task and the travel between visits
• giving care workers some say over their shifts
• a weekly call that only checks they’re OK and never asks them to fill a shift

She thinks small agencies have the edge here, because you can know every care worker by name.

‍

‍