Scaling Care with Heart

Joanne Lockwood

Tags: Social Impact, Inclusive Care, Home Care Innovation, Franchising Models, Ageing Well, Health Span, Preventative Health, Care Worker Recognition, Family Care Challenges, Purpose Led Business

Lessons in Innovative Home Care Leadership and Inclusion

Amrit Dhaliwal explores the reinvention of UK home care through entrepreneurial vision, purposeful franchising, and a steadfast commitment to dignifying care workers while championing prevention, inclusion, and sustainable well-being for all.

In this powerful episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood is joined by Amrit Dhaliwal to explore how compassionate care can be scaled across the UK through entrepreneurial innovation. The discussion begins with the personal motivations behind entering the social care sector and swiftly moves into the structural challenges facing both providers and recipients—including unsustainable government funding, undervaluation of care workers, and the complexities families face when navigating the care system. Joanne shares first-hand experiences as a family member procuring domiciliary care, painting a vivid picture of the gaps between intention and reality, while Amrit details the shifts needed to professionalise and rebrand the care sector, elevate careers, and centre the user’s dignity and independence.

Amrit is a dynamic entrepreneur and the CEO of Wolfinch, a purpose-led franchising model transforming home care provision across the UK. Inspired by both his wife’s and his own family’s lived experience, Amrit broke away from traditional hospitality ventures and established a successful home care franchise built on quality, values-based recruitment, and sustainable business practice. His vision extends into social impact, professionalisation of care roles, and advocating for a reimagined funding structure that rewards innovation, retention, and upskilling. Amrit’s work is fuelled by the belief that scalable, quality care should empower both the cared-for and those who deliver it.

Joanne and Amrit dissect the root causes of care sector instability—from restrictive 15-minute local authority contracts to public misunderstandings about the breadth and skill within social care roles. They highlight the importance of prevention, workplace flexibility for family carers, and the need for policymakers to shift their focus from lifespan to healthspan. Amrit discusses franchise-led solutions to empower new entrants into home care, rooted in community engagement, robust training, and equitable business models.

A key takeaway from this episode is that transforming social care requires disrupting outdated paradigms while recognising the human side of scalable, compassionate services. For listeners navigating care for loved ones or interested in innovative, values-driven business models, this conversation provides both practical insights and a rallying cry for meaningful social change.

Published: 26.02.2026

Recorded: 20.10.2025 Episode Length

Duration: 1:00:30

Shownotes:

AI Extracts and Interpretations
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Clips and Timestamps

Turning Point: “But when I think about the time and the emotional investment, the financial reward just wasn’t really there comparatively.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:03:18 → 00:03:25]

Social Care Funding Crisis: “the government’s really kind of left us to our own devices. We get paid through local authority contracts, a rate that is not sustainable and is not reasonable. You know, we can’t run sustainable businesses from that”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:08:25 → 00:08:38]

Viral Topic: Redefining Home Care
“And then that will attract really interesting talent from different sectors who will come with their own thinking and help redefine home care, which, you know, happens to be the wolf inches strap line.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:11:13 → 00:11:27]

Viral Topic: The Challenges of Short Care Visits
“It’s unreasonable in my opinion, to ask them to do that.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:14:51 → 00:14:55]

Scaling Solutions in Domiciliary Care: “And I think really that for me is all part of creating, creating a solution because we all know the problem and certainly if you’re within the sector, you know what the problems are and we can sit and we can talk for an hour about all of the problems that are there, which is vast, or we can actually start taking some action and saying, well, okay, what am I doing differently as a provider? Am I charging enough so I can pay my staff enough?”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:21:30 → 00:21:53]

Viral Topic: Solving Staffing Challenges in Home Care
Quote: “But for me, and again, maybe I’m too simplistic, but for me, I think often the problem is a lack of activity problem. And I think if you’re able to get out there enough and you are making enough phone calls and you speak to enough people, you will get a member of staff and you sort of look at a kind of sort of two to one ratio when you’re, when you’re looking at clients to care workers, invariably, and actually that works.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:23:12 → 00:23:41]

Retention Crisis in Home Care Recruitment: “he’s getting 10 people in but then losing nine and then having a net growth of one.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:24:45 → 00:24:50]

Empowering Care Workers Through Upskilling: “Why can we not give the care workers some of the most responsible work within the business? Because they are the ones that are out there the whole time. You know, the only thing stopping us is upskilling them.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:30:21 → 00:30:33]

Viral Topic: Building Muscle Mass for Healthy Ageing: “And it’s really talking to people at much earlier age and stage when they’re fitter, healthy and so on, say well, you know, what are we doing to increase bone density, increase muscle mass? You know, when we’re talking about your, your father or father in law that had the fall, you know, it’s, it’s really then saying, well, okay, have I really worked on, in the early years on my quads, my glutes and really kind of made that strong enough because I know that after a certain age or you know, even after the age of like 40, the deterioration is going to increase, the muscle mass is going to decrease and so I’m left in a much kind of weaker position.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:39:55 → 00:41:22]

Viral Topic: Rethinking Ageing
“I just think that if we all just take our little bit and we, you know, focus on our sphere of influence, we can really make monumental change in how we think about ageing and how we think about wellness and how we think about being older.”
— Amrit Dhaliwal [00:51:45 → 00:53:10]

Definition of Terms Used

What is Domiciliary Care?

Definition: Domiciliary care refers to in-home support services provided to individuals who require assistance with daily living tasks, enabling them to remain independent within their own homes rather than moving to residential care facilities.
Relevance: Central to the UK care sector, domiciliary care is discussed as both an essential service and as an area facing challenges due to funding, staffing, and quality in this episode.
Examples: Assistance with bathing, preparing meals, medication administration, mobility support, and personal hygiene for elderly or disabled individuals.
Related Terms: Home Care, Residential Care, Care Package, Care Quality Commission (CQC)
Common Misconceptions: Many assume domiciliary care is solely for elderly clients or limited to basic tasks; in reality, it can involve complex, multifaceted needs spanning all ages, including short-term needs post-operatively.

What is Direct Payments (Personal Budget) in Social Care?

Definition: Direct payments are funds provided by local authorities to individuals eligible for social care, allowing them to arrange and pay for their own care package, rather than relying on services commissioned by the council.
Relevance: This episode highlights how direct payments offer greater autonomy and flexibility for care recipients, contrasting with restrictive, often underfunded local authority contracts.
Examples: A family receives direct payments and contracts a private care company on their own terms for support visits, rather than using council-appointed providers.
Related Terms: Self-funded Care, Local Authority Commissioning, Personalisation, Private Pay
Common Misconceptions: Some believe direct payments provide unlimited choice or funding, when in fact they are frequently capped and may not fully cover comprehensive needs.

What is Value-Based Recruitment in Care?

Definition: Value-based recruitment is a hiring approach focused on selecting candidates whose personal values align closely with the ethos and mission of the care organisation, rather than basing selection solely on experience or qualifications.
Relevance: The episode emphasises the importance of recruiting individuals driven by genuine purpose to improve retention and quality of care, challenging traditional methods that prioritise volume over suitability.
Examples: Interview questions exploring motivations for caring, attitudes towards vulnerable populations, and compatibility with the organisation’s values, leading to higher staff loyalty and less turnover.
Related Terms: Person-centred Care, Recruitment Strategy, Staff Retention, Purpose-led Business
Common Misconceptions: It is often assumed value-based recruitment is less rigorous or not applicable to lower-skilled roles; in reality, it is vital for ensuring committed, long-term staff and is increasingly recognised by sector authorities.

What is Professionalisation of the Care Worker Role?

Definition: Professionalisation involves elevating the role of the care worker through improved training, recognition, remuneration, and branding to place it on par with other health professions, countering stigma and perception of low status.
Relevance: In the episode, the guest advocates for rebranding care work and boosting its public image, citing the disparity between how nurses and care workers are perceived and remunerated.
Examples: Providing advanced training modules, offering career progression pathways, celebrating achievements, and launching marketing campaigns recognising care workers as skilled professionals.
Related Terms: Career Pathway, NHS Branding, Social Care Sector, Stigma, Workforce Development
Common Misconceptions: Many mistakenly believe care work is “unskilled” or purely menial, whilst it requires a broad spectrum of expertise, empathy, and responsibility, especially in managing complex health conditions.

What is Health Span versus Life Span?

Definition: Health span refers to the period of a person’s life during which they are generally healthy, active, and able to perform daily functions independently, as opposed to life span, which is simply the total number of years lived.
Relevance: The episode discusses the societal shift needed from increasing life span alone to maximising health span, highlighting prevention and proactive self-care as essential for ageing well and reducing care sector strain.
Examples: An 80-year-old who is still physically active and independent has a greater health span compared to another who may require intensive care or support for decades prior to death.
Related Terms: Prevention, Wellness, Longevity, Frailty, Quality of Life
Common Misconceptions: The focus on longevity is frequently mistaken for quality living; yet health span prioritises the value and wellbeing during those years, not merely their numerical extension.