Companionship Referrals for Social Prescribers and Link Workers
This page is for NHS social prescribing link workers, care coordinators and hospital discharge teams in East Hertfordshire who need somewhere reliable to send an isolated older person. AirCarers Companion is paid companionship, not regulated care. We are not CQC registered, and we provide no personal care, no medication support and no clinical or nursing tasks. If someone needs those, they need a registered agency and we will say so rather than take the referral. What we do provide is company at home on the same day each week, a walking companion or a lift to a group you have already found for them, GP and hospital appointments, errands and shopping, support coming home from hospital, and a few hours of respite for an unpaid carer. We are live now across SG11 and SG12 in Ware, SG13 and SG14 in Hertford, EN10 in Broxbourne and EN11 in Hoddesdon, with CM23 Bishop’s Stortford and CM21 Sawbridgeworth from September 2026.
Rates start at £25 an hour, set by each companion and shown on their profile before anything is booked. There is no contract, no minimum hours and no joining fee, and there is no waiting list. Where companionship is part of an agreed support plan, a Hertfordshire direct payment account card can be used to pay us exactly as any privately funded family would. There are three ways to refer: pass on our details and let the family get in touch, email the referral to lucie@aircarers.co.uk, or call Lucie on 07455 750006, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Every referral needs the person’s consent to be contacted, their name and postcode, the best number, a couple of lines on what would help, anything affecting a safe first visit, and whether cost has been discussed. We acknowledge referrals the same working day and call the person within one working day.
If the person cannot manage a website and there is no family nearby to set it up, Lucie Evans, our Registered Manager and Designated Safeguarding Lead, will visit them at home free of charge and with no obligation, match them to a companion, set up their account and payment details in the room and book the first visit. After the visits start you are not left guessing: every visit is checked in and out with a GPS location and written up with a note on how the person seemed, and Lucie reads the week’s records looking for change rather than incident. With the person’s permission, if someone is declining, needs more than companionship, or something looks like a safeguarding concern, we come back to you, and safeguarding follows the Hertfordshire multi agency route regardless. To refer or to ask first, call 07455 750006 or email lucie@aircarers.co.uk.