In-home care, rostered by name
Willowmere keeps your mother in her own kitchen, with her own teacups, and the same familiar carer at the door every week. The roster carries a name, not a shift number.
Free, no obligation. Most families just want to know what's possible.
Three honest starting points. None of them commits you to anything, and a care advisor will tell you plainly if you don't need us yet.
What usually helps
Companionship and everyday help — the crossword, the big shop, a proper lunch, a walk while the weather holds.
Where to start
Start with two visits a week. Most families find their rhythm inside a month.
What usually helps
Daily personal care, medication prompts, meals and mobility — built as a written weekly plan the whole family can read.
Where to start
A care advisor visits, listens first, and drafts the week with you before anything begins.
What usually helps
Respite care, from an afternoon a week to a fortnight of overnights, with the routines kept exactly as you run them.
Where to start
Tell us the routine once. We write it down and keep it, so a break never means starting over.
Six ways we help, each described by what actually happens in the house — not by what it's called in a brochure.
Conversation, the crossword, a drive to the garden centre. For the weeks when the house is fine but the days are long.
Washing, dressing, medication prompts, proper meals. Dignified help with the parts of the day that have become hard.
From one protected afternoon a week to a fortnight away — with the routines held exactly as you run them.
Familiar faces, unrushed days, and a home kept navigable. Care that works with the memory that remains.
The first six weeks home are when recoveries hold or fail. We bridge them — meals, medication, appointments, confidence.
A calm presence through the night, or around the clock — so 2am is never faced alone.
Nobody shows you what home care actually looks like, so here is one real shape of a Willowmere week — Elsie's, shared with her family's blessing and the names changed.
Tuesday
Four across over tea, then the supermarket run with the list Elsie writes herself. Marion carries the bags; Elsie keeps the list. That's the deal.
Wednesday
Deadheading the roses counts as physio if you do it right. The exercise sheet from the physiotherapist gets done at the kitchen bench, between pots.
Friday
Scones from the recipe Elsie's mother used. June from next door comes at noon; Marion makes herself scarce and quietly restocks the pantry.
Sunday
Tom covers Sundays on Elsie's roster. He sets up the video call with her son in another city, then gets the roast in. Same fortnightly rhythm, same two faces all year.
Carers are the whole product. Ours are employed, not gig-booked; vetted in person; and introduced to you before care ever begins.
Marion Hale
Senior carer · 9 years with Willowmere
"Mum saves the hard crossword clues for Marion. She'd sack us all before she'd lose her." — Elsie's daughter
Tom Whitcombe
Carer · 4 years with Willowmere
"Dad won't say he looks forward to Sundays. He just wears the good cardigan." — a client's son
Gwen Ashby
Dementia care lead · 7 years with Willowmere
"Gwen learned the words to Mum's hymns. I cried in the car when I heard them singing." — a client's daughter
An introduction visit costs nothing and decides everything.
Captions from the families, kept the way they said them.
“Marion helped Mum build a playlist of the songs she and Dad used to dance to. Sunday afternoons sound different in that house now.”
“I rang the care line at ten past six in the morning, sick with worry. A human answered on the second ring and knew Dad's name without looking it up.”
“The written week changed everything. My brother in another state reads the same plan I do. We stopped arguing about Mum's care because we finally had the same facts.”
Most care companies make you phone them to hear a number. Here are ours — honest ranges, before you've told us anything.
Two-hour minimum, same carer each visit
$38–44/hr
Personal care, dementia care, post-hospital support
$46–58/hr
Sleeping or waking nights, fixed small team
from $310/night
The 2am promise
If your regular carer is unwell, you'll know by 7am — and you'll know exactly who's coming instead, by name. If something frightens you in the night, the on-call advisor picks up. Reliability isn't a feature of the service. It is the service.
If you're asking, something has usually already happened — a fall, a hospital stay, a fridge that stopped being restocked. The honest test: is someone in the family carrying more than they can keep carrying? A free conversation with an advisor will tell you whether it's time, and we will say so if it isn't.
Our rates are published above — $38 to $58 an hour depending on the care, overnights from $310. Your written quote comes before care begins, and the first conversation about funding options is free.
By a person, not an algorithm. Your care advisor meets your family, then proposes a carer based on temperament, interests and the practical needs of the week. You meet them before you decide — if the chemistry isn't there, we propose again.
The written week changes with them. Care plans are reviewed every quarter and after any hospital visit, fall or diagnosis — and you can request a review any Tuesday you like. The carer stays the same wherever possible; it's the plan that moves.
Usually within a few days of the first conversation; post-hospital arrangements are our fastest. We won't skip the introduction visit to move quicker — meeting your carer first is the step that makes everything after it work.
You'll hear from us by 7am with the name of the covering carer — always someone briefed from the written week, never a stranger with an address. For clients with complex needs we introduce the backup carer in advance, on a quiet day, so no cover visit is ever a first meeting.
Tell an advisor what this month has looked like. They'll tell you what's possible, what it costs, and what they'd do if it were their mother. No pressure — just guidance.