What is senior home care?
Senior home care is a service that is provided to senior citizens in the comfort of familiar surroundings and their own homes. This is a much more popular alternative to care in nursing homes or using fly-by-night freelance and independent operators. Due to the safety and peace of mind which home care offers, the home care industry is quickly becoming a much sought-after service provider. What’s more is that the sector has shown strong resilience even during the Covid-19 pandemic and this is a crucial factor for consideration when a prospective business owner is looking for a proven business model that’s resilient to market slumps.
Why is it a fast growing industry?
With all this in mind and the solid backing for home care industry growth, it’s important to delve a little deeper into the reasons why the sector is doing so well.
Ageing population: for starters, the UK’s senior population is 11 million or approximately 19% of the total population. This figure is expected to grow over the mid- to long-term and this means that you’ll never be short of clients. In fact, the booming demand for home care coupled with the ageing population are critical factors to consider when making up your mind.
Affordability: apart from the ageing population, senior home care also offers clients and families a more affordable option of taking care of their loved ones. Nursing homes can be expensive while independent contractors don’t provide any levels of assurance or security that their services will be of a high quality standard. As a result, because of the affordability of the service offering, more and more families are opting for in-home care for their loved ones.
Increasing demand: the ageing population and its upward trend coupled with the affordability aspect means that there is significant demand for in-home care services. This factor should not be overlooked when doing your market research and competitive analysis of the home care marketplace.
Convenience: the final reason why home care is growing so fast is because it offers families much higher levels of convenience and satisfaction. It’s also an ideal solution for the seniors themselves because it means that they can be paired with someone who is well able to take care of their needs.
What are your options?
- You’ll be able to benefit from a proven and recession-proof business model
- You’ll get comprehensive training and ongoing support
- You will be able to enjoy marketing and advertising help to ensure that your business takes off and that it remains successful
- There is a strong support structure from the rest of the franchisee network
- You’ll be more likely to receive favourable financial support from lenders
- And much, much more!
If you were to opt for the independent start up route, you’d be going it alone with no guarantees that your efforts will succeed. You’ll also have no support structure, and all your efforts will involve learning by trial and error. What’s more is that independent start ups are much less likely to receive financial support from lenders in the form of acquiring loans because they tend to fail more often than not.
As a result, it’s highly advisable to consider franchising is a more affordable, proven and profitable option.
