Gloucestershire home care company named UK's top bosses in care sector awards

The directors of Gloucestershire homecare company DoCare, are celebrating after being named the UK’s top bosses at the finals of the Great British Care Awards

Steve and Una Mills, who set up Stroud-based DoCare 12 years ago, won the Care Employer Award during a ceremony held at Birmingham’s ICC.

Care Employer Award winners have to show their commitment to care and to delivering an excellent service.

“We are truly amazed but also thrilled and delighted,” said Steve Mills. “When we set up DoCare in 2004, we ran it from one room in our house. Since then we’ve relocated twice, expanded our geographic footprint eight-fold and taken on new local authority contracts.

“We have to put this success down to our fantastic team, who help to create a real family atmosphere at DoCare and strive to make every day a better day for our clients. This award is really for them.”

The pair started DoCare following their experience of trying to source care for Una Mills’ father. When they approached social services it wasn’t available and so, moved by the plight of those waiting for support, Steve Mills took the redundancy he’d been offered by BT and spent six months researching the sector and getting himself retrained.

When they started, Mr Mills delivered the care himself and they had just one client. They now have teams covering Bristol, South Gloucestershire, the Cotswolds and West Oxfordshire, contracts with four local authorities and a large proportion of private clients. DoCare employs just over 100 staff and is actively recruiting.

Una Mills said: “We are thrilled with the award, but really this is a reflection of DoCare as a company and the great team we have around us, who all go that extra mile to help our clients.”