Fiona Lowry appointed to chair Blue Ribbon Health and Wellbeing

Former founder and chief executive of The Good Care Group Fiona Lowry has been appointed to chair Blue Ribbon Health and Wellbeing.

Lowry, who was CEO of the group between 2010 and 2019, has experience as a board trustee, chair and non-exec director in the care, media and arts sectors, across private, public and charity organisations.

Blue Ribbon is a provider of adult residential care and supported living services for adults with high acuity autism and learning disabilities.

It plans to grow its portfolio of homes, which consists of four across the Northwest of England, following a management buy-out.

Through a partnership with Queen’s Park Equity (QPE), management team Mark Fuller, Paul Carter and Sam Leonard will continue lead Blue Ribbon, which opened its first home in 2017.

‘We are excited to secure this investment which will enable the group to focus on supporting many more individuals over the coming years,’ said Fuller. ‘Many of the individuals we support come to us from institutional environments and need the bespoke services that we develop.

‘Our partnership with QPE means we can focus on continuing to increase the number of individuals we care for, secure in the knowledge that we have a committed, supportive, and experienced investment partner.’

Alison Price at QPE added: ‘We are very excited to be supporting Mark, Paul and Sam and the wider team to build on their impressive success to-date. Blue Ribbon stood out to us because of its uncompromising focus on quality, its innovative approach to partnering with commissioners and its expertise in looking after service users with high acuity autism and learning difficulties.’

Blue Ribbon is the sixth platform investment from QPE Fund I, which was oversubscribed and closed at £202m in December 2020. QPE provides capital to entrepreneur-led businesses within the health and pharma, education and tech services sectors that want to accelerate growth.

Connell Consulting carried out commercial due diligence on the deal, while Carter Schwartz advised on the appointment of Lowry as chair.