Leading the team towards caring excellence
With experience drawn from a variety of backgrounds, our three directors are all very much 'hands-on' and all share a passion for developing the most respected home care service in the area.
Above (left to right): Austin, Laura and Caroline walking the 26-mile #ShineWalk through London in 2015, in aid of Cancer Research UK
Caroline Southgate, MCSP, Managing Director
Caroline qualified in 1997 as a physiotherapist from UEL and has worked as a Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist for many years, building up a successful private practice, CS Physio Ltd, which maintains an enviable reputation in the area.
During her years working with physiotherapy patients in the community, Caroline witnessed home care provision of dramatically inconsistent quality. It was this that inspired her to establish Doris Jones and build a home care service to radically improve on the levels of care she was seeing in patients' homes. Caroline lives locally, as do her son and three daughters, two of whom have children themselves. She is deeply involved with the local community, and with several professional bodies in the health and social care sector. Her role as an independent inspector for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) provides the opportunity to help drive up the quality of care across the sector - something she is utterly passionate about.
Caroline's talent for multi-tasking is legendary. A typical day might include any combination of the following: interviewing potential care staff, assessing three new clients, babysitting a grandchild whilst baking a cake for a friend, inspecting a care home for the CQC, flying an aeroplane, treating a patient post hip op, giving a talk to a local church group, training a new intake of carers... you get the idea.
Laura Heraty, ACA, Director
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, Laura worked for many years in the banking and media sectors in a variety of financial, strategic and operations roles. In 2003 she joined Save the Children in a role that took her all over the world, planning and funding the establishment of new national operations for the charity.
Since 2007 Laura has been a partner in a successful chartered accountancy practice and it was here that one of her clients - a certain Ms Southgate - approached her with an idea for a new venture...
Laura maintains her involvement with the accountancy practice while sharing responsibility for the management of Doris Jones. Her financial training and eye for detail might make her a bit of a nitpicker, but her obsession with accuracy ensures our rostering and operational procedures run smoothly and efficiently.
Austin Heraty, Director
Austin spent 25 years in advertising agencies and marketing consultancies, working on a variety of brands from Sony and Motorola, Disney and the BBC, to a whole bunch you'll never have heard of.
The opportunity to leave behind the corporate world and do something far more worthwhile was too attractive to pass up, so Austin joined Laura and Caroline in setting up Doris Jones in late 2011. His role extends across most aspects of operations and, of course, marketing.
Austin has a great passion for (or frustrating obsession with) effective communication, so he is particularly involved in making sure that everything the company says, both to staff and to the outside world, is clear, consistent and of value.