Sarah Priest

When did you start working for Gray Healthcare?

July 2020

Can you describe your role?

Sarah is our implementation Lead. She is responsible for implementing all new packages of support.  This involves assisting with finding the right property, recruiting staff and making sure that the move from hospital or other setting for the person we support goes smoothly and to plan.  She works together with social workers, care co-ordinator teams and the current provider along with the person we support and their families throughout the transition period from hospital to home. It is her responsibility to project lead the process from start to finish making sure that everything is in place and that all eventualities are covered.  She is one of the first people a new person we support will meet as she visits them in their current setting early on in the process – one of her favourite parts of the job!

Before joining Gray Healthcare?

Sarah has worked in several different roles since leaving school. Her first job was in hospitality, but from a young age she had always wanted to work in a caring role and to help others.   As a route into the care profession, she began volunteering in a Children’s Contact Centre and as a Children’s Welfare Officer.   She also completed a degree in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham.  Her first role in care was as a Support Worker supporting people with mild learning and/ or physical disabilities to live in the community.  She has worked as a Support Worker for several other companies, and still visits the people she supported then.

What do you like about working at Gray Healthcare?

‘Without a doubt, it’s the people we support. They are at the centre of absolutely everything we do. Giving people who have lived in hospitals for so long the opportunity to live in the community and to see them progress is so rewarding.  I can’t stress this enough.  When it works, it’s incredible.  There is one gentleman we support who had lived in hospital for many years.  When I see him now and how far he has come it’s simply amazing.  He has been supported by us since April 2021 and for the first time in 12 years he is well enough to go and visit his elderly parents. He has come on leaps and bounds, he prepares his own meals, goes out shopping and talks to people in the community.’

Gray Healthcare in three words:

‘Innovative, bespoke, person-centred’