Care provider profile
A vision of exceptional care: the Boutique approach
This year marks a significant milestone for Boutique Care Homes – it has been five years since the small, family-run care provider opened its first home, The Burlington, in Shepperton, Surrey. Founder and managing director Ameet Kotecha looks back at Boutique’s journey so far
No-one could have foreseen the pandemic hitting care homes across the country only a year after we opened our first home, with lockdowns soon following in March 2020. Amid an exceptionally difficult business environment for the care sector, Boutique Care Homes has managed not only to survive, but to thrive and grow further. We now have three operational care homes with a total of 221 beds providing care to older people in Shepperton, Newmarket, and Broadstairs, and we plan to open a further six homes, all in the South East of England.
Of course, our journey began before the doors to The Burlington opened to its first residents in January 2019. A small, skilled team headed by myself oversaw every detail of the planning application, then demolition, and subsequent construction of a new care home on the site. It was a series of projects which involved a lot of learning, although we had plenty of experience in designing care homes from a previous group, Churchgate Healthcare. But Boutique was about something different – something out of the ordinary. We wanted to create something truly exceptional – boutique by name, boutique by nature. Inspired by previous experience and the examples set by others in the industry, we set out to build a group which married the efficiency and quality control of corporate care groups with the warmth and intimacy of a family-run home.
Finding the right location Boutique’s commitment to providing top quality care starts with a commitment to finding the sort of high quality location that enables a care home to thrive. That means being centrally located in a town, with excellent transport links so that team members, professional visitors, and families will all find the home convenient and easy to
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We now have three operational care homes and we plan to open a further six
travel to. Particularly important are nearby train and bus links, as we like to promote travelling via climate-friendly modes. With land in short supply nationally, finding and securing such sites is not easy, especially once any constraints to development are identified. As a small startup, the task of finding sites was one of immense difficulty in the beginning, competing against established and bigger players in the sector. It was an uphill struggle to establish the Boutique brand and what it stood for when bidding, since the brand had no operational track record to its name.
In the end, a combination of
perseverance and networking paid off, giving us our big break, and the chance to build an operational track record to support further acquisitions. Our first site – now The Burlington – was an unviable charity-run care home put up for sale by its trustees. It was acquired through a combination of a strong business case, and by presenting an inspiring vision of a thriving community where every individual would be cherished and celebrated for their strengths and abilities.
That vision has now come to life, with The Burlington crowned Care Home of the Year at the Surrey Care Awards in December 2022, a highly competitive category. Moreover, Boutique won ‘Best Care Group of the Year (Small)’ at the 2023 National Care Awards – a significant accolade from the industry amid fierce competition across the country. Perhaps most touching of all, the trustees of the former charity have
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com April 2024
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