Yorkshire & Humber Enterprise Awards 2018

Best In-Home Support Services Provider – West Yorkshire

Five Towns Home Assistance offers a range of home support services to a range of clients. Having recently been recognised in our prestigious Yorkshire & Humber Enterprise Awards 2018, we felt it was high time we invited the firm’s Founder and Manager Jemma Clarkson-Mitchell to tell us more. 

Drawing on Jemma’s local knowledge and dedication to supporting her clients, Five Towns Home Assistance offers a wide range of services including companionship, sitting services, cleaning and cooking, as well as wellbeing checks.

Quality is central to the firm’s service offering, and as such, Five Towns Home Assistance is fully insured, and all Support Workers have enhanced DBS checks, ID badges and are smartly dressed in uniform. Jemma discusses how the firm came into being when she noticed that there was no similar offering available.

“Personally, I noticed a gap in the market five years ago, and as a result of this I resolved to come up with a business plan for a business to provide some services without needing to be a Care Company, but a ‘Supporting Agency Instead’. All this means is we cannot do regulated activities like personal care and are not regulated by CQC, whilst at the same time providing clients with the solutions they want.

“After all, it is my belief that clients should not have to pay care prices just if all they need is basic services such as shopping and company. This is how Five Towns Home Assistance came into being, and today we offer an array of services which are more cost effective to clients that just need support to stay independent, in their own homes.”

Over the years, Five Towns Home Assistance has flourished thanks to its unique offering and dedication to excellence. Jemma shares an insight into her firm’s service offering and why she believes this is so important in today’s society.

“Owing to a wide range of factors, the elderly are living longer, and whilst many are able to live unaided, they often require minor support or assistance. In our market currently, the options their families are given is hiring either a cleaning firm which don’t offer other services or a care agency, which can be expensive and often do not provide the exact level of service that the client requires.

“That is where we come in. Here at Five Towns Home Assistance, we offer a wide range of support, to clients and their families before a full-time care team is needed, as this can be very costly. Services offered range from making client’s meals, to just been there to support everyday life, simple tasks like making a drink, or reading letters, or even just someone to talk too. Additionally, we also offer cleaning services, shopping services to which some clients need support, whilst their family are at work. This unique combination of support and cleaning services ensures that clients receive the support they need, and that their loved ones are well cared for.”

As its name suggests, Five Towns Home Assistance is a local company that supports both clients and the local community in and around Yorkshire, as Jemma is particularly keen to highlight.

“Being a Yorkshire Girl coming from a Yorkshire town, like all the Support Workers who work at Five Towns Home Assistance, I feel, by doing our job we are giving something back to our local communities. As part of this focus, we support many small businesses in our areas where we work, taking clients to local cafes, local butchers, and not just the big supermarket’s etc., visiting a local park and enjoy a simple ice cream and just having a chat.”

“Alongside the local community, our offering is particularly important to our clients, as Social Care cut-backs have really hit our local communities, and budget cuts in Wakefield and Leeds Districts have had a knock-on effect on our elderly. Some of our client’s only see us because they have no family, or their relatives no longer live in the local area. As such, we provide a vital local service for a variety of client/service users.”

In her concluding comments Jemma outlines how she and her dedicated team will continue to provide their clients and community with the same high-quality service offering that has led the firm to its current reputation for excellence.

“Ultimately, at Five Towns Home Assistance the support of our service users is our most important aim. Therefore, each service user’s agreed support plan has been individually collated for that particular individual in accordance to their wishes, choices and personal preferences and decisions about their respective support, and this bespoke approach is key and remains at the forefront of our focus.”