Home Instead East Hampshire and Midhurst ¦ Home Care & Live-in Care

We’ve been using Home Instead for a little over a month, and are very impressed. The team have been so helpful and patient, and they are making an huge difference in my great aunt’s quality of life. Arranging care when you’ve never done this kind of thing before is overwhelming, and it comes at a time when life is already very difficult and worrying for everyone involved. Everyone I have spoken to in the office has been lovely, and the care team have been superb at giving my great-aunt the dignity and independence she needs whilst making sure she is safe and supported. Very pleased with the service they provide.

I was employed by Home Instead East Hampshire & Midhurst for seven years, retiring last year. I always felt valued and part of a team. There were regular meetings with the office staff and the other caregivers, as well as opportunities to join in training programmes. How many hours I wanted to work and how many clients I had was decided between me and my manager. I was glad I could wear my own clothes and not a uniform.
The best bit was building up relationships with my clients, it was so rewarding. As each visit was for a minimum of one hour, and usually more, I didn’t feel rushed. Tasks included cooking, taking clients out shopping or for tea, doing the laundry or helping them shower.
I retired at 76! There were still caregivers older than me as well as twenty year olds!
I thoroughly recommend Home Instead as a great company to work for.

Home Instead were excellent when we had carers coming in twice a day. We loved the fact that the same carers came regularly, no one new came without being introduced first and they come at a set time each day (this was very important to us – we didn’t want Dad going to bed at 7pm one day and maybe 9pm another day, as can happen with many agencies). The ladies are all lovely with Dad (and us!), the support from the office was excellent and they understood how challenging it is to make decisions around elderly, dementia care. I really would recommend them.
However, once we moved to live-in care things didn’t go as smoothly. At first HI were excellent but, as I think it is hard to source live-in carers, we found that holiday cover sometimes meant several carers coming in, just to cover one week. We sometimes didn’t know who was coming in until the night before. This is probably the same challenge for all the agencies. We found that the live-in carers wanted to chat a lot, which was understandable as Dad lived out of town and nearly all of them were without transport, but it meant we actually spent very little time speaking with Dad. Quite a few seemed to not really know how to interact well with someone with dementia.
I’d recommend that if you need live-in care, with whatever agency you go with, you have a clear, detailed written agreement of your requirements, and you know exactly what they will charge you. And be bold enough to change agencies if it is not working out.