Meet Victor Phiri, Home Manager at Abafields

Victor Phiri has worked in residential and dementia care for over 20 years, starting as a care assistant in 2002 and progressing through senior care, unit management, and registered manager roles across the North West and beyond.

He joined Abafields as Home Manager in 2025, bringing a career built almost entirely on improving care standards in homes that needed strong, experienced leadership.

Background and experience

Victor holds an NVQ Level 5 in Leadership and Management, a CQF Level 7 in Planning and Strategic Management in Health and Social Care, and a Dementia Care Framework Accreditation, a specialist qualification he earned in 2016 as the first manager in his organisation to complete it as a dementia care home.

His track record across more than two decades spans residential, dementia, and nursing settings. He has managed homes rated Good and Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, and has spent much of his career as a turnaround specialist, brought into homes with poor CQC ratings to rebuild care standards, culture, and compliance. In one case, he took a home from Inadequate to Requires Improvement in 12 weeks. In another, he managed an Outstanding-rated 64-bed nursing home and retained that rating through a CQC inspection.

Before joining Abafields, Victor worked as a Peripatetic Project Manager for Community Integrated Care, covering a portfolio of homes across the North West. Prior to that, he spent six years at Four Seasons Health Care, progressing from Senior Carer to Registered Home Manager, where he led a 43-bed dementia care home, reduced staff sickness from 12% to 0.8%, and achieved full Dementia Care Framework accreditation in 18 weeks.

His approach to care

Victor's view of his role is straightforward. In his own words:

"I fell in love with care because I want to go home at the end of the day thinking I've made someone's day. My values are person-centred care for every resident, because they're all individuals. And person-centred treatment for staff as well, because you can't treat the staff the same. You've got some staff who've got strengths that other staff haven't got, so you have to blend that together to make sure you've got a strong team."

He does not operate with a closed-door management style. His office is open to staff, families, and residents at any time, and he sees himself as part of the team rather than separate from it.

On caring for residents, he believes routine and familiarity matter as much as physical care: "We need to follow their own personal life stories, how they used to live. Can we still facilitate that? We do the risk assessments, but we start from the person, not the process."

At Abafields

Victor oversees all aspects of care at Abafields, working closely with a team that includes many long-serving staff members, some of whom have been at the home for over 15 years.

He is responsible for ensuring that the standards that earned Abafields its CQC Good rating across all five inspection categories are maintained and built on, and that every resident is known as an individual, not just a resident.

Get in touch with Victor and the team: Contact Abafields | 01204 399414 About Abafields | Our care home