- Start Up Cost:
- Franchise Type:
- Sector Type:
- Investment Type:
- Market:
- £27,000
- Premises Based
- Domiciliary Care
- Start-up
- B2C
Walfinch is a franchised home care agency providing personalised health care at home to individuals and families nationwide, from offices across the UK.
We are seeking to expand our presence in the marketplace through a network of strong, passionate, and committed franchisees. Care is at the heart of our business – and we care about all our franchisees, as much as they care for our clients.
A Walfinch home care franchise is the opportunity to make a genuine difference to your community, while making a good living. Few businesses offer this combination of rewards.
Walfinch offers an alternative to care homes. We know that more than nine out of ten people say that if they need care, they would prefer to receive it in their own home. Walfinch franchisees help address this need offering home care to clients in a caring professional way with integrity, excellence, teamwork and fun.
We provide the expert training and support you will need in your new business venture, so this franchise suits investors with or without experience in the care industry.
An Alternative to Care Homes
Walfinch provides home care to a wide range of clients, including older people. It offers a huge menu of personal care services, including companion care, dementia care, and respite care, plus care to people living with a learning disability, physical disabilities, stroke rehabilitation, injury, and convalescent care, all designed to improve quality of life.
We help people lead their lives the way they want, as independently as possible, in the comfort and familiarity of their own homes.
A Growing Market
The UK population is ageing. Around one in five people in the UK is over 65. By 2042, this will increase to one in four. Around 4 million older people (40% of those over 65) have a limiting long-term illness or disability. That number is set to increase to over 6 million within 10 years.
The group most likely to need health and care services, the over-85s, is projected to reach 2.7 million in 2040. In addition, Age UK says the number of older people experiencing loneliness is expected to reach two million by 2025, so private companionship services are more important than ever. It all adds up to a growing demand for care at home.
We are an award-winning organisation for franchisee satisfaction, we pride ourselves in the innovative efforts of going paperless. Our CRM and payroll functions are monitored using technological systems to maintain accuracy and efficiency.
As an owner of a Walfinch home care franchise, you would launch and manage a care agency that provides home care services within a defined territory. Your team of highly trained carers would deliver much-needed services to the elderly and vulnerable in the comfort of their own homes.
Walfinch services include:
Uniquely, Walfinch can offer live-in care too which can mean the difference between clients staying in the own homes rather than moving to a care home. Your range of services will mean you have the power to improve the quality of life for so many people!
In addition, we offer customer management systems enabling you and your team to log clients’ medications, eating habits, hobbies, and anything else required to provide a five-star care service.
How long will it take to launch from the time I sign the franchise agreement?
Will you help me with a business plan for the new business?
Are there any other costs I can expect?
What is my expected break-even and how long should it take me to reach it?
Do I need any healthcare training or background to join Walfinch?
Will you help me find clients?
How will I know what to charge clients?
Is this opportunity full time or part-time?
Are locations available? Could you help me choose a location?
What kind of training and support do you receive with a Walfinch franchise?
Care is, rightly, a highly-regulated business, and we always abide by – and strive to exceed – all the national regulations and standards, and make it as straightforward as possible for all our franchisees to achieve the highest standards.
Ongoing Training and Support
The Franchise Package
Advanced back-end systems to facilitate:
Walfinch franchisees see the difference that they make to clients
in real life
“It’s never too late to improve a life,” says Walfinch franchisee Tiffany Meachim.
“Our client Patrick, who is in his 50s, is prone to balance problems, and was only able to complete ten to 15 steps unaided when he became an hourly care service client with us in March,” says Tiffany, who is managing director the Walfinch franchise covering Mansfield and Ashfield, Notts.
“After daily visits from our care team, who also accompany Patrick round his village on social calls and help him with physiotherapy exercises, he can now walk up to 200 yards!” says Tiffany.
Patrick has had mobility problems since an accident when he was seven and a stroke ten years ago, so his family were stunned on the day that he got up from his chair and walked upstairs – something he had been unable to do for years.
Recently his family contacted Tiffany to say how pleased they were to see the huge improvement in his mobility since she and her team started working with him.
Patrick says: “Walfinch Mansfield is one heck of a company. Everyone who works there from office staff to carers has been absolutely amazing.”
Patrick is not the only one whose life has been improved by Tiffany’s team.
“Recently social services called to say that one of our clients, who is 41 and has a muscle wasting disease, has made so much progress that they had been able to discharge him. They asked us to pass on their thanks to our carers who had help him come so far.”
Tiffany says: “One of my greatest pleasures as a Walfinch franchisee is hearing stories like this. I often get messages telling us what a difference we have made to clients’ lives.
“I pass them all on to everyone including carers, office staff and management, because we are all part of one team working together to improve the quality of life for our clients. The results speak for themselves,” say Tiffany.
Walfinch is looking for new franchisees, who, like Tiffany, prioritise care quality while wanting to build a successful business.
Gardening with a boxer: how Cameron the Walfinch franchisee is upending the stereotypes
of the care sector
Picture a professional care provider and it’s unlikely to be a 23-year-old man working with a semi-pro boxer, but the story of how Cameron Campbell reawakened his care client Alistair’s zest for life shows how Walfinch is breaking the mould.
Cameron, the Walfinch franchisee for West Suffolk, was asked by Mary, a nurse, about care for her dad, Alistair.
“She was worried that he was not eating properly, and he seemed to have become less engaged with the world,” says Cameron. “She wanted a carer to visit twice a week to ensure he was thriving."
Alistair likes sport so Cameron matched him with Sam, aged 20, who, as well as being on Cameron's care team, is a semi-professional boxer (and Cameron's younger brother).
“They were soon out in the garden, chatting about sport while trimming hedges and cutting the lawn,” he says. Before long Sam was accompanying Alistair on shopping trips, errands and walks.
Sam says: “Alistair has a great sense of humour and we have a laugh together. When I see him, we go out, because he likes to get outdoors and so do I." Sam used to be a bricklayer but says: "Cameron asked me to join his team and I fell in love with this job. It brings a smile to my clients' faces and to mine.
"Most clients and their families are surprised when I turn up but they like my youthful energy and we often compare life when they were young to my life today. Some even say I'm their extra grandchild! Even when I eventually go pro as a boxer, I'll still work with some of my clients."
Being a Walfinch franchisee is all about solving problems.
Cameron says: “We had a client who was struggling to speak, but seeing a word written down helped her remember it. Her son had written some words on paper to help her. I saw it was a good idea so I printed the words out on a piece of paper and laminated it so that she could keep it by her bed. She could point to the words she needed, like drink and pain. Small actions can make a big difference.”
Cameron embodies Walfinch's ability to step outside the traditional image of the care sector. He left school at 16 and worked in recruitment, and later joined Walfinch head office to recruit care workers.
“When I wanted to start my own company, Walfinch offered me the chance to become a franchisee, so at 23 I own an hourly care services business,“ he says. “I’d never done care work before but now as well as managing the business and my care team I help out with client care when necessary. It’s a rewarding business whatever your age or background.”
Walfinch is looking for new franchisees who prioritise care quality while wanting to build a successful business.
The Walfinch franchisee turning pain into pearls
In our franchise we turn people’s pain into pearls, says Dr. Fredrick Hölscher .
Fredrick, managing director of the Dunstable, Luton and Leighton Buzzard Walfinch home care service, says: “We are ‘singing in the pain’ of dementia!”
Frederick encourages his team of carers to sing with their dementia clients – and sometimes even joins in himself.
Frederick saw the effect after trying singing with a lady of 95 who finds it difficult to communicate because of the erosion of her cognitive abilities.
“That day she did not want to get out of bed and felt very grumpy. She kept on shouting, ’Leave me alone!’. Our carer found a song by one of her favourite singers, Engelbert Humperdinck, on Spotify and I asked her to join me in the song.
“Soon we were singing together, and I was amazed at how she still remembered the words. It was followed by a few other songs and the grumpiness gave way to a smile and a twinkle in her eyes. I will never forget when she put her head on my shoulder as we walked down memory lane singing one song after another. We had a human moment of connection and I wondered what went on in her mind,” says Frederick.
He adds: “Moments like these enrich our lives as care workers. I call them ‘pearl moments’ of human connection. As humans we tend to avoid or get rid of our pain and irritation, but pearl shells do not do this – instead they embrace them inside the shell and coat the irritations with layers of fluid until they become beautiful pearls.”
Before entering the care sector Dr Hölscher was a business consultant and executive educator for over 25 years. He is currently still visiting professor at Ashridge-Hult Executive Education in Berkhamsted.
When he wanted to open a care sector business, he chose the Walfinch franchise. “When I saw the number of regulations and the paperwork which - rightly – are involved in providing care services, I realised that it would be better to get into the sector with a Walfinch franchise, which brings with it the experience built up since it was founded in 1987.”
He says: “This business requires more effort and planning than any other business I’ve been involved in, but this the most fulfilling role that I have ever had.”
Walfinch looks for new franchisees who prioritise care quality while wanting to build a business.
See: https://walfinchfranchising.com/, call 0204541 4545, or email franchising@walfinch.com
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