Questions families ask

We are a home care agency in Cheshire, providing companionship and personal care to older people and adults who need support to stay living in their own home.

We are registered with the Care Quality Commission, which is the regulator for care providers in England.

Companionship, personal care, dementia support, meal preparation, medication prompts, help with shopping and errands, transport to appointments, respite for family carers, and overnight stays.

What we do not do is nursing. If someone needs wound care, injections or clinical procedures, that is a district nurse's job, not ours — though we work alongside them happily.

Ring the office or send us a message and we will arrange to come out and meet you. The visit is free and there is no obligation to book anything.

We talk through what is needed, what the day currently looks like, and what would actually help. Then we put a written care plan together for you to agree before anyone starts.

Thirty minutes. Some agencies insist on an hour minimum; we do not, because a half-hour morning call is genuinely all some people need and it is not our place to sell more than that.

Yes, and most people do. It is very common to begin with one or two visits a week and build up as things change.

It works the other way too — after a hospital discharge people often need a lot of support for a few weeks and much less after that. We will tell you when we think you can cut back.

It depends what is being asked for and what is already in the rounds. Sometimes we can start within a few days; a larger package or overnight care usually takes longer to staff properly.

Ring and ask — we would rather tell you honestly that we cannot help this week than take the booking and let you down.

Home care is priced by visit length and by what the visit involves, so there is no single figure that would be honest to publish here.

We quote after the free assessment visit, in writing, before anything starts. What moves the price is how long each visit is, how many visits a week, whether they fall at unsocial hours or weekends, and whether the visit needs one carer or two.

Possibly. Anyone can ask their local council for a free needs assessment, and if they qualify, a financial assessment follows to work out what the council contributes.

Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester run their own adult social care teams — which one applies depends on your address. If you have complex health needs, NHS Continuing Healthcare is a separate route worth asking about.

We are not able to give financial advice and we are not connected to the council. But we can tell you who to ring, and we will not pretend the private route is the only one.

No minimum term, and no tie-in. You are not signing up to a block of hours or a fixed number of weeks.

Care needs change, sometimes quickly, and often at the worst possible moment. Being able to increase, reduce or stop without penalty is the whole point of using a small local provider rather than a national one.

Every carer is carefully screened, DBS checked, fully insured and trained before they visit anyone. All hold a full driving licence.

We are a small team by choice. It is the only way to keep the promise that matters most to us — that the same person comes back.

That is the whole idea of how we run. We match a client with one or two regular carers and keep it that way wherever we possibly can.

We will not pretend it is never broken — holidays, illness and emergencies happen to carers too. When it does, we tell you in advance who is coming instead rather than sending a stranger unannounced.