Companionship Care Explained

What is companionship care?

Companionship care is non-medical home care focused on company and everyday life rather than hands-on personal help. A carer visits at agreed times to talk, share an activity, help with small practical jobs, and get someone out of the house. There is no washing or dressing involved, and no clinical element at all.

It is the one service families tend to dismiss as a luxury, and the one that quietly does the most preventive work. Somebody reliable coming through the door twice a week notices when the fridge is empty, when a fall has happened and not been mentioned, when medicines are untouched, and when a mood has slipped. Very often it is the companionship carer who flags that more support is needed, long before anything becomes a crisis.

The contrast with personal care at home is the useful one. Personal care is hands-on and regulated by the Care Quality Commission; companionship is neither, which is why some providers offer it without registration. If you want the full picture of how the services fit together, our guide to the types of home care sets them out side by side.

What does companionship care include?

There is no fixed script, and that is rather the point. A good companionship visit is shaped around what the person actually enjoys rather than a checklist. In practice, most visits draw on the same handful of things.

• Conversation and company, over a cup of tea or a meal, at whatever pace suits.
• Getting out: appointments, the shops, church, a club, a walk, or a visit to a friend.
• Shared activities: cards, crosswords, gardening, baking, music, or an old photo album.
• Cooking and eating together, which does far more for appetite than a meal left on a tray.
• Light household jobs alongside the person, so the house stays theirs rather than being tidied around them.
• Prompts and reminders about appointments, medicines, and bills, without taking over.
• Help staying in touch: a video call to a grandchild, a letter, or setting up a phone properly.

Who is companionship care for?

The most common picture is someone who is managing physically but is on their own far more than they would choose. Often that follows a bereavement, when a house that worked for two becomes very quiet for one. Sometimes it follows a move, or the loss of a driving licence, which for many people is the moment the world shrinks to the length of the street.

It also suits people whose family live too far away to drop in, those whose mobility has reduced enough that outings have stopped happening, and people in the early stages of memory problems who are safe alone but benefit from structure and a familiar face. And it works well as a first step for someone who is not ready to accept personal care. Building trust with a carer over conversation makes the later, harder conversations far easier when they come.

There is a genuine wellbeing case here, and it is worth stating carefully. Being alone for long stretches is associated with poorer health outcomes and is a recognised public health concern, which is why the NHS and charities run so much work on it. That is not the same as saying companionship care treats anything, and we would not claim it does. What we see in practice is simpler: people eat better, get out more, and ask for help sooner when somebody is regularly through the door.

Is companionship care the same as befriending?

No, and this is worth being straight about, because for some families the free option is genuinely the better one. Befriending schemes are usually run by charities such as Age UK and are staffed by volunteers, who typically visit or telephone once a week for a chat. They are free, they are valuable, and thousands of people rely on them.

Companionship care is a paid, employed service, and the differences follow from that. The carer is trained, DBS-checked, insured, and accountable to a provider and a care plan. You choose the days and hours rather than taking what a rota allows, you can book several visits a week or several hours at a time, and you can ask for outings, driving, cooking, or practical help that a volunteer scheme would not cover. If a carer is unwell, the provider sends cover.

The honest rule of thumb is this. If what is missing is a friendly weekly chat, start with a befriending scheme and see whether that fills the gap. If the need is more regular, more practical, or involves getting out and about reliably, paid companionship care is the service designed for it. Plenty of people use both.

How does companionship care work, and what does it cost?

Most families start with one or two visits a week of two to three hours, which is long enough to actually do something rather than just arrive and go. From there it flexes in either direction: some people build up to daily calls, others book a longer weekly outing, and some add it alongside personal care visits so the week has a social shape as well as a practical one.

Companionship is charged at the same hourly rate as other visiting care, so industry figures of roughly £20 to £38 an hour apply here too. Those are sector estimates rather than our prices. Ours starts from £26 an hour, agreed in writing after a free home visit, with no minimum contract length. Because it is not a regulated activity, councils fund it less readily than personal care, though it can be included in a support plan where social contact is part of the assessed need. Our costs and funding page covers the routes available.

One arrangement worth knowing about: companionship care pairs naturally with respite care at home. If a husband or daughter is providing most of the care, a companionship visit gives them a reliable few hours off while the person they care for gets something they enjoy rather than simply being supervised.

Arranging companionship care with us

We are a CQC-registered, locally run home care provider based in Croydon, supporting families across Croydon, Purley, Thornton Heath, New Addington, Bromley, Beckenham, and Orpington. Our carers are employed directly by us and hold enhanced DBS checks, including those visiting purely for companionship.

The matching matters more here than in any other service, because this only works if two people genuinely get on. We take time over who we send, we keep the same carer wherever the rota allows, and if the fit is not right we will change it without any awkwardness. Everything starts with a free home visit, which is mostly just a conversation about what someone likes.