The questions people
actually ring and ask

Company and practical help, not personal care. A companion sits and talks, plays cards, cooks a meal with you, walks to the shop, takes you to an appointment and puts the bins out on the way past. It is the part of a good week that living alone quietly removes.

Two hours is our core visit and it is what we recommend. One hour is available at £30, and half hours can be added at £13. Anything shorter than an hour is a welfare check rather than company, and we are not the right service for that.

No. Those are personal care, which is a regulated activity, and we are not registered to provide it. Our companions can remind you to take medication but never administer it. If that is what is needed, tell us and we will help you find a registered provider at no charge and with no commission to us.

Yes, with the home’s agreement. It is one of the most common requests we get from families who live too far away to visit as often as they would like. More about care home visits.

Because the first thing you want to know is whether you can afford it, and ringing five agencies to find out is a miserable afternoon. A two-hour weekday visit is £54. Evenings after 6pm and weekends are 25% more. The full list is here.

None of the three. The meet-and-greet before your first visit is free, there is no minimum term, and you can stop with one week’s notice.

Weekly in arrears, by direct debit or card. You are never asked to pay for a visit before it has happened.

More than 24 hours’ notice and there is no charge. Less than 24 hours and the visit is charged in full, because the companion is employed and is paid for that slot either way. We waive it for hospital admission or acute illness, and we do not argue about it.

We are a private service and we are not commissioned by any local authority. Some people fund visits from Attendance Allowance or a direct payment. Ask your local authority whether a direct payment can be used for companionship — the answer varies by borough.

Enhanced DBS on every companion, checked against the adult barred list, plus two references taken up by telephone and a face-to-face interview. The full standard is published here.

Employed by us, paid above the National Living Wage including travel time, supervised and insured. You are not the employer and you carry none of that risk.

Yes, and one named backup you will have met inside the first month. If your companion is ill, the person who arrives is somebody your relative already knows.

Tell us and we will change the companion, usually within a week. If you want to stop altogether, one week’s notice, no exit fee, no conversation you have to steel yourself for.

It goes in the written update to your nominated contact the same day. Anything urgent gets a phone call, not a note. If we ever believe someone is at risk of harm we will raise a safeguarding concern with the local authority, and we will tell you we have done it.

A twenty-minute call the same day, a free meet-and-greet within five working days, and a first visit within ten — provided we already have a companion near you.

All ten boroughs of Greater Manchester. We match you with a companion who lives near you, because a short journey is what makes the same face every week possible. Check your area here, and if we do not yet have somebody near you we will say so plainly and tell you how quickly we can.

Most of our enquiries come from a son or daughter who does not live nearby. You can arrange everything by phone and email, and you get a written update after every visit. More for families.

Yes, in the companion’s own insured car, with business use cover in place. Mileage is charged at the HMRC rate of 45p a mile on top of the visit. Travel to your home is never charged.