According to the National Statistics, by 2024, 21.7% of the population in the North East will be over the age of 65, compared to 18% in 2014, this demonstrates a strong growth of clients in the area and in new Home Instead territories.

Gavin Morrigan and Michelle Fairless, the owners of Home Instead Cleveland have grown a strong Home Instead presence in the North East, with a positive reputation across the area. Here, they tell us more about their journey so far with the UK’s number 1 Home Care company.

Following redundancy and finding ourselves at a crossroads with what to do next in life, we were

exploring a number of different options, though having both been made redundant on a couple of

occasions previously, working for someone else in an HR environment or setting up a HR

Consultancy or finance related business was not appealing. We thought about franchising but

knew little about it and so, by chance, we heard there was a franchising exhibition at the NEC in

Birmingham so decided to attend.

We heard a speaker from another Home Instead office giving an overview and answering FAQs on a general panel of franchise representatives such as banks and legal advice personnel and the Home Instead representative struck a chord with both of us, leading us to visit the Home Instead exhibition stand to find out more. The business model seemed to make perfect sense and coupled with Michelle’s passion for elderly care following her own life experiences, we wanted to find out more, once we did, we never looked back.

By April we had set up our Ltd company, by May we were on New Owner Training and by June we had opened our doors, less than 4 months from knowing anything about franchising least of all, Home Instead.

With positive support from National Office, we networked and developed new ways of broadening our name and reputation in the community receiving more and more recommendations.

One highlight was discovering the National Office Fraud Public Education Programme as we felt this was a unique way to ‘give’ to the many groups and communities across our territory something that would benefit everyone, but particularly aimed at older and vulnerable groups, whilst helping to showcase our company and reach many more people.

We approached our Local Police and Crime Commissioner with a bid to promote a large number of fraud presentations across the Cleveland Police Force area, soon becoming experts in scams and frauds. From this, our exposure snowballed in many communities as we continued to follow the model and build upon our growing reputation as being the best care company.

We have continued to take advantage of the fantastic support and initiatives provided by Home Instead’s National Office as we look to continue our growth and provide outstanding levels of care.

Joining Home Instead was absolutely the right decision for us and the only time we look back is to see how far we’ve come.