After a decade of continued growth that has seen it open 58 new homes and grow its colleague base to over 10,000, Care UK has announced the appointment of Martin Friend to the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer. 

Martin will join the Care UK’s executive team in January 2022, reporting directly to Chief Executive Andrew Knight, and will be taking on overall accountability for operations across the business. In particular, he will be charged with continuing to build on the company’s enviable track record of care quality and transitioning the 26 Sunrise and Gracewell homes which come under Care UK’s management next month. 

Care UK’s Chief Executive Andrew Knight said: “The addition of this role into our business is a natural evolution given our ever-increasing scale. I have no doubt Martin’s experience, energy and his fresh perspective will bring a valuable contribution to our future growth plans, particularly our focus on expanding our role as a quality provider of homes for people funding their own care. I look forward to working with him to build on the great work of our operational teams and deliver on our longer-term operational strategy.”

Martin will join Care UK from Nuffield Health, where he represented operations on the executive board as Chief Operating Officer, a post he held since 2017. In this role, Martin was instrumental in successfully integrating a number of acquisitions, including Virgin Active and, more recently, Aspen Healthcare and led the delivery and growth of Nuffield Health’s award-winning connected health model to 1.5m customers per annum. Prior to this role he was responsible for Nuffield’s fitness and wellbeing services – a role he took up in 2009 after working in the leisure, telecommunications, and sporting sectors.

Commenting on his appointment Martin Friend said: “I am incredibly excited about this opportunity. The arrival of teams from Sunrise and Gracewell, alongside Care UK’s already ambitious development programme, make this a fantastic time to be joining the company. My first priority will be to meet as many of the operations team as I can to really understand the challenges of the business and how we can best deliver on the company’s long-term goals.”