The Future of Care: What Bernie Suresparan Understands About Britain’s Ageing Crisis

Britain is getting older, and it is getting older fast. The country’s over-65 population, currently around 19% of the total, is projected to climb to 27% within the next half-century.¹ The over-85 bracket, the group most likely to require residential care, is set to nearly double from 1.6 million to 3.3 million by 2047.² And the first wave of post-war baby boomers, born after 1945, crossed the 80-year mark in 2025, entering the age range where structured daily support, chronic disease management, and cognitive care needs spike sharply.³

Few people understand the implications of this better than Bernie Suresparan. The Executive Chairman and founder of We Care Group and Summit Care Group, Suresparan, built a portfolio of 34 care homes across the North of England from a standing start in 2007, covering nursing, residential, palliative, dementia, and end-of-life care.⁴ Before that, he spent 24 years at BP, managing operations across Singapore, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. He arrived in the UK from war-torn Sri Lanka at 17, with nothing but a job as a forecourt attendant in London to his name.

In a recent conversation with Rajan Nazran for the Global Indian Network’s Brown Business podcast, Suresparan framed the coming crisis in arithmetic terms.

“

In 1945, the Second World War ended, and the baby boom began and continued for several years. All those, the first of the baby boomers, turned 80 last year, and the average age of a care home resident is 84. So you haven’t seen anything yet. You will see the demand exceeds supply moving forward.”

Bernie Suresparan

Member

Global Indian Network

The numbers confirm his instinct. Britain currently has close to 17,000 care homes with roughly 529,500 registered beds, served by a workforce of nearly 788,000.⁵ The adult social care sector contributed an estimated £68.1 billion in gross value added to the English economy in 2023/24, more than double the £28.4 billion direct cost of publicly funded social care.⁶ Gross local authority spending on adult social care reached £29.4 billion in 2024/25, and the wider sector is valued at £34.5 billion.⁷ Yet demand is already outstripping capacity, with an estimated 144,000 additional care home beds needed over the next decade alone.⁸

Suresparan sees the workforce shortage as the hardest constraint. When Nazran asked him about the sector’s outlook, he was blunt.

“

Our sector is going to be impacted massively, because we think by 2030 we need another 400,000 extra workforce. That’s taking technology out of the equation. So where is this 400,000 going to come from?”

Bernie Suresparan

Member

Global Indian Network

His figure aligns closely with independent analysis. The IPPR has projected a shortfall of up to 400,000 care workers.⁹ A House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee report put the number of additional social care posts needed by the early 2030s at 490,000.¹⁰ Skills for Care’s most recent estimate, published alongside the 2025 workforce strategy, called for 470,000 additional posts by 2040 just to match the growth of the over-65 population.¹¹ The vacancy rate across the sector currently sits around 7%, roughly three times the national average.¹²

The pipeline that had been filling part of the gap is thinning. Visa changes introduced in 2025 curtailed international recruitment into social care, and the share of British-born workers in the home care industry has fallen to 64%, while the share of non-EU nationals has risen from 25% to 31%.¹³ The government’s proposed fair pay agreement, which Suresparan referenced during the interview, aims to improve salaries. But pay is only part of the equation. Annual staff turnover sits around 25%, with an estimated 335,000 workers leaving the sector each year, and nearly three-quarters of care workers still earn below the real Living Wage.¹⁴

Featured Conversation

The Psychology of Success

with Bernie Suresparan

One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the episode is Bernie’s perspective on success. While many entrepreneurs speak about wealth creation, Bernie repeatedly returns to a different metric altogether: impact.

Listen Now 36:10 min · Full episode

“The one equation that doesn’t go away is the number of vacancies,” Suresparan told Nazran. “You just have to find how you’re going to do it.”

Dementia is the heaviest weight pressing on the system. Around 70% of care home residents live with dementia or severe memory problems.¹⁵ The total number of people with the condition across the UK stands at approximately 982,000 and is expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040.¹⁶ The associated costs are already £42 billion a year and are projected to reach £90 billion over the same period.¹⁷ Two in three people over 80 in England now live with two or more long-term health conditions, and the Department of Health and Social Care projects that 57% more adults aged 65 and over will need home care by 2038 compared to 2018.¹⁸

What makes Suresparan’s perspective distinctive is that it comes from the operating floor, not from a policy document. He runs what he describes as a turnaround operation, buying underperforming care homes and rebuilding them through people-first management. His philosophy, laid out during the podcast, is disarmingly simple.

“

I have always put my people first. Then comes the quality performance. We put the financial performance third. Because if you get the first two right, the third one is automatic.”

Bernie Suresparan

Member

Global Indian Network

That approach has held up. We Care Group and Summit Care Group were shortlisted across five categories at the 2025 National Care Awards.⁴ His company motto, displayed on its website, reads: “If it’s not good enough for my mother, it’s not good enough for anyone.”²⁰ Over 2000 people currently work across both groups, and Suresparan has built internal progression pathways that develop frontline carers into home managers and regional managers, a model he sees as essential to addressing the sector’s retention problem.

He also raised a point that rarely gets enough airtime in public discussions about ageing: the emotional weight carried by those who provide care. “The carers’ work is not easy,” he said. “It is one of the hardest jobs. We have to ask ourselves, can we be carers? We can all be for our own parents, but can we be carers for anyone and everyone? It takes really, really someone special to do that job.”

Featured Conversation

The Psychology of Success

with Bernie Suresparan

One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the episode is Bernie’s perspective on success. While many entrepreneurs speak about wealth creation, Bernie repeatedly returns to a different metric altogether: impact.

Listen Now 36:10 min · Full episode

The wider structural picture is one no single operator can fix alone. New care homes are being built, but not fast enough. The trend is toward larger purpose-built facilities housing 60 to 80 residents, partly because the investment needed to build from scratch demands a certain scale.⁵ Smaller and older homes continue to close, unable to meet modern regulatory standards under the CQC’s reformed inspection framework rolling out through 2026 to 2028.²⁰

Suresparan believes the workforce question is inseparable from immigration policy. “The world is going to be freer than it is today,” he told Nazran. “The movement will be allowing people to come through; you won’t have enough workforce.”

Whether that prediction holds remains uncertain. What is not in doubt is the maths. Britain’s ageing population is not a problem for the next government or the one after that. It is here now, accelerating year by year. And the people who understand it most clearly are the ones like Bernie Suresparan, who have spent the better part of two decades dealing with its consequences every single day.

Bernie Suresparan is the Executive Chairman and founder of We Care Group and Summit Care Group, operating 34 care homes across the North of England. He is a member of the Global Indian Network.

Membership

A Private Circle for Global Indians

Join a trusted community of founders, investors, policymakers, and cultural leaders shaping the global Indian story across 46+ countries.

Register Your Interest By application & nomination

References

1. Office for National Statistics, via PolicyBee UK Domiciliary Care Statistics 2026. “The UK’s over-65 population is set to rise from 19% to 27% in the next 50 years.” ↩︎
2. AccessSkills, “Future of Care Homes: Trends & Training Insights UK” (April 2026). Population aged 85+ projected to nearly double to around 3.3 million by 2047. BTG Advisory (March 2025) projects over-85 population growth from 1.6 million to 2.6 million within 15 years. ↩︎
3. Healthcare Today, “Boom in ‘Boomer’ Care” (March 2026). “This year, the oldest members of the Baby Boomer generation turn 80, driving greater demand for care, support and specialist services.” ↩︎
4. Business in the News / We Care Group, “We Care Group and Summit Care Group Recognised for Excellence by National Care Awards” (September 2025). Founded in 2007; shortlisted in five National Care Awards categories; operates across 34–35 care homes. ↩︎
5. Carehome.co.uk, “Care Home Trends 2026” (April 2026). 16,441 registered care homes, 529,549 registered beds, workforce of 787,992. ↩︎
6. Skills for Care, written evidence submitted to Parliament (ASC0050). Adult social care sector contributed £68.1 billion GVA per annum to the English economy in 2023/24. ↩︎
7. Institute for Government, “Performance Tracker 2025: Adult Social Care” (October 2025). Gross current expenditure by local authorities reached £29.4 billion in 2024/25. Gov.uk Adult Social Care Finance 2025 values the wider sector at £34.5 billion. ↩︎
8. Carehome.co.uk, “Care Home Facts & Stats” (May 2026). “Forecasts suggest an additional 144,000 care home beds will be needed over the next decade.” ↩︎
9. IPPR, via LocalGov.co.uk, “Care Sector Faces Staff Shortage of 400,000 Over Next Decade” (November 2018). “There will be a shortage of 350,000 workers in social care by 2028, rising to nearly 400,000.” ↩︎
10. House of Lords Library, “Staff Shortages in the NHS and Social Care Sectors” (December 2022), citing the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee (June 2022). “An extra 475,000 jobs would be needed in health and 490,000 jobs would be needed in social care by the early part of the 2030s.” ↩︎
11. Institute for Government, “Performance Tracker 2025: Adult Social Care” (October 2025), citing Skills for Care. “For the workforce to match the growth of the population aged 65 and over, there will need to be an increase of 470,000 posts between 2024/25 and 2040.” ↩︎
12. Skills for Care / Care Circle Network, “Tackling the Workforce Shortage in UK Care Homes” (October 2025). Vacancy rate at 6.9–7.0% (111,000 unfilled posts); sector vacancy rate approximately three times the wider economy average. ↩︎
13. PolicyBee, “UK Domiciliary Care Statistics 2026” (May 2026). “74% of home care providers still cite recruitment difficulties… the proportion of British workers falling to 64% in 2025… increase of non-EU workers from 25% to 31%.” ↩︎
14. ODI / Center for Global Development, “Staffing Shortages in the UK’s Care Sector” (November 2021). “Nearly three-quarters of care workers earning below the real living wage.” Care Circle Network (October 2025): turnover at 23.1–26.5% (~335,000 leavers annually). ↩︎
15. Alzheimer’s Society / GOV.UK Dementia Profile (March 2025). “70% of people in care homes have dementia or severe memory problems.” ↩︎
16. Alzheimer’s Society / Skills for Care. “Dementia prevalence in the UK is set to increase from 982,000 people today to 1.4 million people by 2040.” ↩︎
17. Alzheimer’s Society, “What We Think About Social Care” (November 2025). “Associated costs of £42 billion today are estimated to rise to £90 billion by 2040.” ↩︎
18. Age UK, “5 Key Takeaways About the State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2025” (October 2025). “2 in 3 (68%) people aged over 80 are living with two or more long-term health conditions.” PolicyBee (May 2026), citing DHSC: “57% more adults aged 65 and over will need home care in 2038 compared to 2018.” ↩︎
19. We Care Group official website. “If it’s not good enough for my mother, it’s not good enough for anyone.” — Bernie Suresparan. ↩︎
20. AccessSkills, “Future of Care Homes” (April 2026). “CQC inspections intensified, with reforms through 2026–2028 focusing on safety, staffing, and person-centred care.” ↩︎