Country Cousins Omdömen 

We had a terrible time with this company and what seems to be their sister company, Patricia Whites. The two agencies have the same managing director,the same address and the same operatives answering their phones but, oddly, slightly different fees. Country Cousins advertises emergency, post-operative care which can be in place within 24 hours where possible. We didn't need care within 24 hours but fairly fast as my elderly father had broken his up and he was my mother's main carer. When we signed up and paid our £200 registration fee, they told us they could have a carer in place in two weeks. A few days later, they said two to three weeks. Then they said a month and then that changed to six weeks. At some point during this process, they switched us to Patricia Whites with the promise that that agency could provide care quicker but we got nowhere at all after that. Throughout, it was really difficult to get hold of the person dealing with our care package. The whole process was really stressful and we lost a lot of time when we could have been getting care in place from another agency. Country Cousins and Patricia Whites made a difficult situation much, much worse. Finally, we asked for a refund of our registration fee and went back to square one trying to put care in place.

I'll keep it short. Two of the carers were acceptable. The others not. Too much of a lottery then. Inefficient and inept administration.

More worryingly the company is not registered with the Care Quality Commission.

Country cousins is a firm that will come and live in your house, give you 24 seven care and personal care. If you're going to use them a lot you need to know that you have to pay a registration fee of £180 to start with. All the people that come out to you are self-employed so you pay them direct, but also you pay country cousins £200 a week as an introduction fee. Every time you hire someone.

I used them on a number of occasions and you need to try and get someone with their own transport from the point of view of shopping and going to hospital visits. The first lady that I got was absolutely huge and must have weighed 35 stone and I was really doubtful whether she would be able to do the job. Anyway to cut a long story short she was light on her feet extremely capable and knew what was wanted ahead of time, when I was in awful pain she joked with me and made me laugh. I paid her some money for the petrol that she used in her car doing journeys for me and shopping and it was really dreadful because we'd had the kitchen flooded and there were 4 24/7 industrial heaters going on for a week but she managed to do the cooking and was absolutely brilliant. I tried to get her back later in the year but on speaking to her she obviously had got her years work already planned out.

You have got to give them two hours a day for themselves which is quite reasonable, they can go to the cinema or go shopping or whatever they want in that two hours

The next lady that I got did not have transport, she was a bit of a luxury lady and took the most expensive train ticket to get to me quickly, and always used the most expensive taxis for the shopping. I would advise everybody to try and get someone who has got their own transport. It's a good service but an expensive one, but if you are in dire straits it's a good firm to be with. Your £180 registration fee is for life, you never have to pay it again, if you need some help in the middle of the night there is a small extra charge but that never occurred with me. If you've got money which I had at the time the cost for the week for my wife and myself was just over £1400 plus the £200 introduction fee that you pay every time you hire someone.