Introduction to Sevacare

We are proud to reach our 12th year of operations as being recognised throughout the UK as a leading quality provider of domiciliary and related care services. Sevacare now occupies a spot in the top 10, by volume, of providers of domiciliary care services in the UK, and is probably the largest independently-owned provider in the country.

Sevacare has achieved considerable organic growth over a number of years and now provides 38,000 hours of care and support each week to some 3,000 people from our 22 branches and head office based in Wolverhampton. We provide employment for more than 1,500 care staff and office-based staff in several towns and cities in West Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, the West Midlands, Oxfordshire and three London Boroughs. This planned and incremental growth will continue in the coming years as we seek to cement our position as one the leading providers of care services in the UK.

Sevacare was founded in 1998 by Ravi Bains, who had been working in various roles in Social Care and related disciplines. Having carried out research for an M.A. that identified a chronic lack of housing and care services for BME elders in Birmingham and surrounding areas, the Company was formed to help address this shortfall, providing care services to specifically meet these needs. From its first base in Walsall, and with a handful of family and friends, Sevacare began to provide care to the BME communities, in particular Asian elders, on a voluntary basis. The Company developed to provide services to paying customers, who wished to purchase a specialised service that was appropriate and responsive to their cultural, social and religious needs and preferences in addition to their physical needs.

Many of these initial service users came as referrals from the well established community-based organisations such as churches, gudwaras, mosques and day centres often linked to BME communities, links that Sevacare has maintained and built upon and which we believe are a vital part of our continued success in not only identifying a potential customer base but also are fertile ground for recruitment; we are able to obtain staff from the communities we serve, a theme that continues through to the present day with our "community based approach to business".

Sevacare has now moved on from this initial specialised provision, for although we are still rightly proud of our heritage as a provider of care services to the BME communities, we have evolved into providing a range of diverse and wide-ranging care services to all communities. Sevacare is no longer a specialist provider, but a mainstream provider that can provide a specialist service if required to do so, a small but significant change to our ideology and practice.

The enthusiasm for the range and nature of care services provided by our highly-committed team at Sevacare suggests that our business will continue to grow for some time to come. We are currently developing and expanding our provision of more specialised services, in particular support for people with learning disabilities, and will be looking to develop further our community-based work with people with mental health problems and expand our support to people living in Extra care schemes. The Government is seeking to change the way in which care and support in people's homes is delivered, such that service providers can offer greater choice and flexibility to those for whom they care. Sevacare is at the forefront of this drive for change, backed by the use of the latest technology and an ethos that embraces continuous improvement.

We aim to provide the highest achievable quality of care and service. We recognise that to do this we need to employ quality staff and provide them with all the necessary training to ensure that they have the skills they need to meet the needs of our service users. Sevacare has invested heavily in training, establishing its own accredited NVQ centre, and has in place a highly experienced senior management team to provide strong professional leadership to its staff.

At Sevacare, we see our staff as our greatest single asset. Therefore investing in our staff has been a key theme in the development of the company since its establishment. We have secured recognition as an Investor in People (IIP) from the Training and Enterprise Council on three separate occasions. We are proud of what we have achieved and are committed to continuing to improve and develop the services that we provide to ensure that they are responsive and appropriate to the needs and preferences of our service users and customers.

Our aim is simple: to be recognised as the premier provider of domiciliary and related care services throughout the country, something we firmly believe we will achieve.

RAVI BAINS.

Chairman.