any opinions/advise please?

denisec60

I'd very much appreciate some input. My confidence is at rock bottom as a result of four years pretty severe ill health and trying return to the (almost non-existent) job market. It seems I'm virtually unemployable at 53, with a horribly patchy CV and a recent history of disability/ill health. Anyway...

For some months I've been thinking about trying to start a small business (just myself) in offering a meal cooking service for their elderly in their own home. The service would extend to any basic chores/errands/housework/etc required, charged on an hourly rate. Though I have a brief employment history from 3/4 years ago in care work and obtained training/certification in Manual Handling & Lifting, Food Safety & Hygiene, etc, (i.e. all the basic training in care work) I am not offering a 'carer' service and this I have stressed in the t&c's, etc, I've so far prepared.

I live in a village situated in a reasonably affluent area of the south-east. My own and the outlying villages have a large elderly population and my closest small town has a very large % elderly population; one the largest in the UK. With a rapidly growing elderly population. diminishing services for the elderly and their extended families being under pressure of longer working hours, I think I may be able to make a go of it. A complete lack of confidence has, however, prevented me from doing anything other than typing up some literature/an ad for the great little free booklet that's delivered around all the local villages and town.

I know it's never going to make me rich and would be pretty impossible to scale up but working for myself seems like the only option at the moment. Having worked in the past for an agency where a number of their elderly clients wanted this specific type of service (without the 'carer' element) it *seems* like a good idea.

Not really sure what I'm asking for here. Encouragement, maybe.. or some input to quash the little voice that says 'don't bother, it's a cr&p idea'.. or perhaps just some pitfalls that I'm overlooking.

Many thanks.

Mistral001

You perhaps are trying to do too many things in this service from day one. I should think many large organisations would struggle to deal with the regulations and adminstration to offer all the services that you are proposing to offer.

denisec60

Really? Showing my ignorance here, but just for cooking, cleaning, errands, etc?

Lagoon

Personally I think that there's a lot you'll need to consider in terms of certification and insurance, though it's certainly possible. You'd just need to ensure that your schedule is kept carefully - if someone phones and wants two hours each week with you, including a Sunday lunch and a weekly clean - be prepared to set aside time beforehand to go shopping and get what you need, and time afterwards to travel to your next destination.

I attend a business networking event with someone that offers a similar service here in the North West. Like you, they're not an alternative to a carer - apparently most of their clients are middle-aged men and women who've booked on behalf of another elderly relative. They make use of the cooking, cleaning and errand-running services, which are what they pay for, but in most cases it's just the companionship of an occasional visit that most people benefit from.

All you need to consider, if you're offering these services, is that in reality you'll probably only have time to take on around ten clients a week at maximum capacity. Are you prepared for that, or at least prepared to expand your business if things go well?

Mistral001

denisec60 wrote: »

Really? Showing my ignorance here, but just for cooking, cleaning, errands, etc?

It is not the type of work. I do all those things every day and probably able to do tham as well as most. But offering those services on a professional basis to elderly people? That is completely different.

There is also the fact that many of your clients will be considered vulnerable, so you need to make sure that there are boundaries on what you do for them. If you do too much frankly people, especially family members, might get suspicious of your motives and you need to protect yourself from that. So perhaps you need to concentrate on offering the services through family members as LAgoon suggests.

denisec60

Thank you, both. I really appreciate the input/insights.

Insurance is something I most definitely need to investigate and have in place. A form of certification I'm unsure of; I can clearly see that providing a service for the elderly/vulnerable takes one into this realm but, as I said, I'm very unclear on what form of certification would be necessary.

Perhaps posting this in 'small biz' was perhaps a bit of a stretch. Even if things went well, I don't think I would want to expand. I have no grand plans and just want to generate a relatively modest income for myself - I enjoyed working with the elderly in my previous (in residential care and private homes) role but, with an agency, one cannot cherry pick the work and I'm no longer able to meet the physical demands that actual care work places upon you.

I've been *very* clear in the literature I've prepared so far as to exactly what the boundaries are and it's something I'm extremely mindful of. I agree with the need to concentrate on offering the service through family members and I'd actually anticipated that this would be the main route to gaining clients.