- 09 September 2019
- 59 min read
Care Home Quality Podcast - episode 7 with Angela Fletcher, Chief Executive of Happy Futures
SubscribeLiam speaks with Angela Fletcher about her career journey from Support Worker to Learning Disability Nurse to Operations Director and then founding her own care services centre in Scarborough. Full of energy, Angela speaks to Liam about how she achieved CQC Outstanding. They explore her ideas, innovations and the passion she has for the people in her care and the high regard she has for her staff. If you’re a manager in care, or aspire to run your own care home, read on for an hour’s worth of tips and information!
Topics covered in this podcast
07.56 The concept behind Happy Futures
13.31 Angela’s values as a care manager
19.34 CQC Outstanding requires high levels of staff engagement
27.48 The importance of staff guides, booklets, support plans and training packs
40.16 Angela’s approach to business
43.29 Building a business that places people before profit
47.43 Reading books to develop
51.23 Peter Senge’s ‘Learning Organization’

0.00 Introduction
Liam
Just a quick preamble before introducing my next guest. This guest was recommended by Samuel Barrington and having met her I think the two main reasons Samuel would have recommended her one was that she runs and owns a CQC Outstanding rated service.
And secondly, she has a very astute, commercial instinct and has got that focus on quality, but also being commercially viable. She's got those two forces to kind of work together in an optimal way for care business which which is unusual.
They are two particular reasons why Samuel came to recommend that I meet her. So I drove up to Scarborough from Birmingham to meet her and stayed over so that I could get the most from my time with her.
I didn't really know what to expect but it was way better than I could have imagined. I think when I reflect on this interview, it really is so encouraging to know there is this kind of excellent practice going on in social care businesses up and down the country. So I do hope you enjoy it.
I'm delighted to be introducing you to Angela Fletcher. Angela, would you like to introduce yourself and also talk a little bit about what you're doing now? And what's important to you?
Angela
Yeah, I'm Angela Fletcher, the chief exec for a company called happy Futures in Scarborough and I am a Learning Disability Nurse and I'm very passionate about caring for people who are vulnerable with people with learning disabilities mental health and complex needs recently.
I've been awarded the Cobell Star Award, which was a great honor. We are multi award-winning company.
Liam
So just for listeners... I came here today. It's Friday the 19th of July 2019.
I first met Angela in person today. She's showing me around her center, the Happy Futures Center here.
It was an introduction through Samuel Barrington. Samuel had talked about Angela in glowing terms. It was the ethos, the sense of energy, the sense of passion.
I gather that Angela's very driven and had done something a little bit different with the culture with her Enterprise and that got me curious and. I was really glad that we did get to meet in the end.
I had a look around the center Angela gave me a grand tall and introduced me to her staff. I mean my first impressions were there's an extraordinary amount of good practice here and you're so do you want to.
Talk us through what you've got here for the listeners how the organization is set up in particular and wanting the listeners to understand the sense of rigor and the approach you've taken too. Getting this service right to Outstanding.
About this contributor
Registered Home Manager
Liam Palmer is the author of 3 books on raising quality standards in care homes through developing leadership skills. In Oct 2020, he published a guide to the Home Manager role called "So You Want To Be A Care Home Manager?". Liam has been fortunate to work as a Senior Manager across many healthcare brands including a private hospital, a retirement village and medium to large Care Homes in the private sector and 3rd sector. He hosts a podcast "Care Quality - meet the leaders and innovators”.
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