“The best decision I’ve ever made”: Sona’s Radfield story

When did you last come home from work knowing you’d made a difference to someone’s life?

Sona Bharkhada asked herself that question at 35, pregnant with her first child. Her career had started in pharmaceutical research and public health, then moved through healthcare management into supply management and customer service, and each step had taken her a little further from the people she had set out to help. “I realised I missed that feeling of coming home knowing you had made a difference to people’s lives,” she says.

Her second child was on the way when she decided to do something about it, and four years on, she has that feeling back. She now runs two Radfield Home Care businesses, employs around 50 people, and delivers around 700 hours of care a week to roughly 85 clients across Leicester and Stamford. Her Leicester office was also the first private domiciliary care specialist across Leicester to be rated Outstanding by the CQC.

Does it matter where you’re starting from?

Sona knew healthcare and she knew management, but she had never worked in social care, so she went looking for a franchise that could fill that gap while she brought the rest. “With a franchise, I could have that expertise, documentation and guidance behind me, while I could bring my leadership and management experience. It seemed like a no-brainer.”

Plenty of people reading this will be coming at it from the other direction. If you’ve spent years in care or the NHS, you already know what good care looks like, and you’ve probably delivered a great deal of it on someone else’s rota, within someone else’s budget. What you may not have had is the chance to build the kind of service you’d want for your own parents, with a proven business model behind it.

Either way, nobody expects you to arrive knowing everything, and Sona still had plenty to learn herself, despite her experience. What tipped her decision was the people. “It felt like a true partnership,” she says. “There was a family feel and a culture and ethos that I didn’t get elsewhere. Senior leaders are not driven by adding another franchisee; they want to get the right partner.”

Has it been easy?

No, and Sona won’t pretend otherwise. When her Leicester registered manager left, she stepped into the role herself for around a year while she found the right replacement. “It was challenging, but I learned so much from it,” she says. “I’m stronger because of that experience.”

None of it stopped her growing, either. Two years ago, the owners of the neighbouring Stamford franchise retired, and Sona took the business on, even though it delivered more than double the weekly care hours of her Leicester office. “I had to scale up my thinking,” she says. “But because it was Radfield Home Care, I already knew the systems and the operating structure so I could hit the ground running.”

What makes it worthwhile?

If you’ve been following Rob Dancy’s story, you’ll remember the £14 VHS tape. If you missed that one, it’s well worth catching up: It cost £14. It meant everything.

Sona’s equivalent is a 103-year-old former headteacher, whom her team helped return to the school where she had worked. The school welcomed her back with an assembly and presented her with its Star of the Month award. I’d love to have been in that hall.

It’s the same instinct behind the memorial stone her team made for a client living with dementia who had lost her beloved dog, and the day centre Sona set up when she noticed some of her clients were missing company.

“Those are the moments when you realise you do this for a reason,” she says. “Yes, it’s a job, but for us it’s more than just care.”

Sona’s is one of a growing number of stories like this across the Radfield network, and no two partners started from the same place. If you’d like to read some more real life stories, here’s some great places to start:

Julie: Other franchises dismissed her ideas. Radfield understood them immediately

Katie & Natalie: What does someone do after running a Radfield office? Open their own.

Rob: How a change in mindset changed everything…

Could your story be next?

Sona is honest about what it takes. “You need to be resilient because there are ups and downs,” she says. “And you need to feel comfortable taking risks. But it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

So let me ask that question again: when did you last come home from work knowing you’d made a difference? If the answer took longer to find than you’d like, or you’re already in care and want to make that difference on your own terms, I’d say it’s definitely time we had a chat.

Not to sell you the franchise, or pressure you into anything. I’ll never do that. Just a friendly conversation about whether a Radfield Home Care franchise could be right for you. Click the button at the bottom of this email to schedule a time that suits you.