Every great organisation begins with a human truth. For Unicare, that truth was a father’s love for his son.
Founded in 2019, Unicare’s origins lie not in a boardroom or a business plan, but in the quiet, grinding reality of a family searching for the right support. When Rashied Shote relocated to Kingswood, Surrey, he carried with him something no professional credential could prepare him for: the daily reality of raising Reign, his son, born with cerebral palsy. Finding the right carer — someone with the skill, the patience, the genuine compassion that complex care demands — proved almost impossible. Even offering rates of £18 to £20 per hour, well above the market norm, the right people simply did not come. The system, in short, was failing his family.
Rather than accept that failure, Rashied asked a question that would change everything: Why not build it yourself?
Rashied was not starting from nothing. His career had been built on decades of health and social care training and consultancy — work that had taken him through NHS corridors and into private healthcare organisations across the country. He had shaped the practice of countless professionals. He understood, better than most, what good care actually looked like.
So when he founded Unicare, he brought that entire body of knowledge with it. The carers he recruited were not simply placed — they were trained to the highest industry standards, shaped by a founder who had spent years defining what those standards should be. Word spread quickly. The same organisations Rashied had once supported through consultancy began to call: could he supply them with staff, too?
And so the seeds of something larger were planted. Unicare became a recruitment agency supplying care homes, nursing homes, residential services, and domiciliary providers — not as a transactional staffing business, but as a quality-led operation where every worker remained part of the Unicare family.
Behind every great partnership lies a shared history. Unicare’s story is the story of two old friends finding each other again.
Rashied Shote and Bonsu Sekyere met as young men at Prempeh College, one of Ghana’s most respected schools. Both built careers in the UK. Rashied worked in health and social care training and consultancy. Bonsu rose from operations roles at Care UK and Allied Healthcare to Operations Director at Better Healthcare, before stepping away for early retirement, real estate and property development.
In 2018, they reconnected, and Rashied saw what Bonsu’s experience could mean for Unicare. In March 2023, they travelled to Ghana together. By the time they returned, Bonsu had decided to join.
He came on board in June 2023. Since then, Unicare has grown its reach, deepened its expertise and built a strong, experienced team to support some of the most complex and vulnerable people in the country.
There is one question that Rashied and Bonsu return to above all others when assessing the care Unicare delivers — a question that is at once deeply personal and uncompromisingly professional:
Is this the sort of care we would provide to Reign?
For Rashied, Reign is not a symbol or a metaphor. He is his son. And that question — simple, direct, and impossible to hide from — sets the standard against which every decision, every placement, and every interaction is measured. Anything that falls below it is not acceptable. That shared commitment, between two men who have known each other since boyhood, is the quiet engine that drives Unicare forward.
Rashied and Bonsu looked at what Unicare had become and dared to dream bigger. A recruitment agency was useful, but families like Reign’s needed more than staff. They needed real care.
So they entered the tender market, and local authorities in Surrey, Brighton, Greenwich and beyond took notice. Unicare Recruitment became Unicare Complex Care Specialist Ltd, a name that carried both a promise and a purpose.
The new Unicare grew around three areas, each a gap the founders had seen first-hand.
Complex and clinical care. Support for young people and adults with autism, learning disabilities, mental health challenges and complex clinical needs, so they can stay at home with dignity.
Supported living. Homes where people can live independently, with Positive Behaviour Support and trauma-informed care that sees the whole person, not a list of risks.
SEND and alternative provision. Drawing on Rashied’s background in education, we bring tutors and teaching assistants to young people who have fallen through the cracks.
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We are grateful for Jennifer from Unicare. She is a “God sent”. She engaged positively with our son. Jennifer was genuinely interested in what she was doing with our son, and our son was really happy with the time spent with Jennifer. Thank you Unicare
Complex Care client
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