My family is committed to care at home, so when my grandmother passed away in 1999, my family continued the care of my grandfather at our home in a small town in California, USA. It was clear to my family that we could look after his needs much better at home, where he wanted to be, where he would receive more compassionate care than at nursing home. As a veteran of WWII, this was the least my family could do for my grandfather. After I left my hometown in 2002, to study and eventually work as a healthcare research analyst in London’s financial district, I would often return home to help my father care for my grandfather. This experience left a lasting impression on me. With my grandfather living to age 101 happily in his own home, I saw the joy that comes with home care. I also saw the burdens of family care, and remember the immense help we felt when we received professional home care support in the later years of my grandfather’s life.
Soon after moving to London in 2008, I was attacked coming home from work and was badly injured. I suddenly found myself on the other side of the equation – being cared for. I was immensely fortunate to have a very good friend who cared for me and coordinated my care with her family and mutual friends in the months it took me to recover. She did this with such excellence and compassion that I recovered in nearly half the time projected by the clinicians. Although a tragic experience, I believe it gave me a unique first hand insight into the importance of combining excellent care with compassion.
My own experiences, along with an in-depth insight into the health care sector, its challenges and problems, convinced me of the need for a fundamental change in the way care is provided to people in their own homes. Professional carers should aim for excellence not just ‘good enough’ and they should have a vocation to care– the unique qualities that allow them to provide care with the type of compassion they would show to their family and friends. I wanted to setup an organisation that is home to such exceptional care professionals and looks after them well to assist them in providing the best care in England.
Thus, in 2012, I decided to leave the world of finance and put my many valuable skills to a new and much more important task– raising the standards in home care.
I would like to thank a number of people who over the years have shown me what it is to care– Alice, Geraint, Margaret, David, Victoria, Victor, Andrew, Fanella, Owen, Javier M., Alejandro, Maria, Javier G., Mercedes, Hildegard, Dorothy, and many others– you know who you are. And I provide a special thanks to my friend, Dr. Matthew Knight, who has set out with me to build a special organisation that we hope improves the lives of many people.
Prior to founding Penrose Care with Dr. Matthew Knight in 2012, Robert Stephenson-Padron was a healthcare equity research analyst at Merrill Lynch (2010-2012). Mr. Padron joined Merrill Lynch from Barclays Capital, where he was a healthcare equity research analyst at Barclays Capital and prior to that, worked in a variety of roles after joining Barclays PLC in 2007. From 2003-2008, partly while at Barclays, Mr. Padron worked as a research assistant to epidemiologist Prof. Alison Galvani (Yale University). A former public office holder, Mr. Padron served as a commissioner of the City of Berkeley (California, USA) from 2003 to 2006, first as a budget commissioner and then as a tax commissioner.
In 2014, Robert was named the UK’s Most Outstanding Leader in the Care Sector. He received this honour a second time for the year 2016.
Robert holds a Master in Economics and Finance from the Universidad de Navarra (2007) and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley (2006).
Robert serves as Penrose Care’s managing director. He is always happy to receive ideas on how social care can be improved and may be emailed at robert.padron@penrosecare.co.uk.