Rebecca Whiting

Nineteen years ago, Rebecca Whiting was thrown head-first into the frontline of the care profession. She never intended to stay there, but then personal circumstances and an acquired passion for the sector led her down an unexpected path to career success.   

Fast forward to 2025, and Rebecca, together with her business partner David Wilson, own and operate Right at Home Cheshire East, one of our network’s fastest growing franchises, delivering quality homecare and complex clinical care services.   

“I feel so proud to have started a career in care and progressed to become a successful business owner in this field. This has enabled me to provide security and stability for my family and add social value to the communities we serve,” Rebecca says.  

Falling into care  

In July 2006, Rebecca was looking for a part-time job. She had recently given birth to her eldest daughter, Freya, and was yearning for social interaction.   

It wasn’t long before she was offered the role of a filing assistant at a local authority-contracted care company. But after just three months, she got more than she bargained for when she found herself heading up the mental health department.   

“The former director had to leave due to workplace pressures, so I was thrown into the world of care,” Rebecca recalls. “It wasn’t a very good company to work for – they had a few ‘requires improvement’ ratings from the regulator and were delivering 15-minute pop-in visits, so after nine months, I’d seen enough, and I left.” 

After this stressful ordeal, Rebecca vowed never to return to the care sector. But then another local care company – this time with an outstanding reputation – approached her to join their business as Care Coordinator.   

She spent the next 10 years in a job she loved, and Rebecca believes she’d still be in that role today, if it wasn’t for a personal tragedy.   

“In 2016 my youngest daughter, Georgie, passed away at the age of 13 months. She had a complex heart condition,” Rebecca explains.  

“I took six weeks off work, and then I thought to myself ‘I could either hit the bottle - or get back out there.’”  

Rebecca bravely returned to work, but soon realised she needed a change in direction.   

“My role was challenging, with lots of hours of care to schedule and oversee, but after 10 years, I could do it standing on my head. I needed something more to sink my teeth into and to occupy my mind after losing Georgie,” Rebecca says.  

Finding Right at Home  

Rebecca met her business partner, David, through a mutual Client in their professional capacities.  

“Sadly, the client passed away and in the months after his death we were both assisting the family. During that time, we discussed my existing role, and I explained that while I had brilliant employers, I was ready to move on. That’s when we came up with the idea of opening a care business together.”  

David had previously worked in wealth management and legal services for 25 years and was progressing up the career ladder. But when he reached his early 40s, he had a health scare.   

Fortunately, this turned out to be a misdiagnosis, but the experience made him realise what was important to him. He wanted to do something worthwhile that brought him personal satisfaction, so he began to look at franchise opportunities, and it wasn’t long before he discovered that the care sector ticked all his boxes.   

But he didn’t want to go it alone.   

“I had the experience of providing quality care and he had the business acumen. So, we joined forces and started researching our options together,” Rebecca says.  

As part of the due diligence involved in looking to acquire a franchise in the care sector, the pair met with several franchisors before finding their perfect fit with Right at Home.  

“From the very first meeting with Right at Home, it was clear that their ethics and values aligned with ours. They were on a mission to be the best homecare provider and franchisor in the sector, and with that comes a stringent vetting process to make sure potential franchisees have the right knowledge, values and experience to go into business with them,” Rebecca explains.  

Rebecca and David got the keys to the office of RaH Cheshire East in May 2018 and registered with the Care Quality Commission two months later.   

Clinical care provision  

RaH Cheshire East currently employs more than 80 members of staff and delivers around 1,700 of quality care per week.  

The business is now one of the largest in the network and that’s largely down to Rebecca and David’s critical analysis of the market, which helped them establish how the business can be adapted to meet the changing needs of the communities they serve.   

Given this approach, they were ahead of the curve in providing clinical care services during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“Just before lockdown in 2020, it was predicted that COVID was going to have a huge impact on people with breathing difficulties and other underlying health conditions, so CPAP masks [continuous positive airway pressure) and NIVs [non-invasive ventilation machines] were everywhere,” Rebecca recalls.   

“People were being taken to hospital because there weren’t care providers out in the field who could use this type of equipment. We made our enquiries and found that we could get our care professionals trained to use CPAPs within three hours. It was a no-brainer when we thought about all the Clients we could potentially care for in their own homes.”  

The care team at RaH Cheshire East has since received training to deliver PEG feeding, tracheostomy care and bowel stoma care, and manage chronic conditions including diabetes and epilepsy.   

“We regularly receive calls from CHCs (NHS Continuing Healthcare services) asking us to take on complex care packages, and we continue to source more training so that we can deliver specialist services in the home to as many people as possible.”  

RaH UK is aligned with David and Rebecca’s vision to provide services traditionally carried out in healthcare settings in the comfort of people’s own homes, thereby facilitating hospital discharges and preventing unnecessary admissions.   

In 2023, the franchisor created a Clinical Lead role, recruiting a registered nurse with over 30 years’ experience, to deliver training in delegated healthcare activities. This is enabling all of our 80+ offices to develop their service offering along the same lines as Rebecca and David have.