My guest today is David ‘Budge’ Price, talking about the trials and tribulations that have been ongoing with care for Gina.

This is the 4th podcast where Budge talked to me about Gina’s story. The first time was in October, 24, then December 2024 lastly, November 25. (If you haven’t heard Budge’s previous interviews, you may like to listen before hearing this one.)

The summer of ‘25 has been difficult for the family. After moving into their new home a time that should have been exciting turned sour when the reclining chair that the council sent for Gina to sit in was awful. As you’ll hear from our conversation - it was far from ideal – especially, considering Gina’s many needs. Due to the lack of comfort that the chair was providing Gina with, in the end, Budge had to go and buy a chair himself, which was incredibly costly. However, the difference the new chair has made has been incredible.

Following this the next issue the family had was a break-down between the care provider and Budge. He talks about the huge amount of stress he has been through over the last two years. Because Gina still needs care, to be taken to hospital visits etc, Budge never has time for himself. Care and loving his wife is his complete focus, and he was caring for her 24/7 – the entire time, morning to night.

Not surprisingly, it made him ill, so he approached their care providers to ask about having someone who could come in and sit with Gina while he had time to go out on his own; meet friends for a coffee; shop, or go for a walk. But the important thing to Budge was that it would be best to have one of the members of staff who were already working with Gina and had built up a great relationship. As you’ll hear, this wasn’t to be. The care provider didn’t listen. They didn’t once ask Budge what he and Gina needed. There was a complete communication breakdown – not between the carers who were already working with Gina, but with the office side of the care providers business.

Budge was becoming ill himself, and in the end he contacted a new provider who did everything you’d expect a good care provider to do – they asked what he and Gina wanted. They trained the carers that were going to work with her and spent time building the relationships. Now Budge is enjoying time to himself and feeling a lot less stressed.

If you want to find out about care in any shape or form you can contact me:

Website: https://shreevecareservices.co.uk/ 

Email: [email protected]

My guest today is Kevin Griffiths of The Care Show in Swindon. He explains how he got involved in The Care Show, after a friend messaged him while he was on holiday and then told him exactly what she’d done, and how he, as someone who has great hospitality experience, could help.

Kevin goes on to talk about why he was so keen to join his friend in this venture, which they took over in August. Swindon as an area has a huge number of people involved in the care industry, but like many large cities and towns, they don’t have a space where they can come together and connect. The show will give people an opportunity to look at new innovations and ideas.

With The Care Show, they are looking to get people who work in care along so that they can have time away from their work to explore the new ideas, talk to other people working in the same industry, and also how they can take care of themselves.

One of the things that Kevin talks about is how expensive care is, and wanting to make it more affordable. People don’t understand what is possible when it comes to care or understand the diversity of needs in care. Again, these are the sorts of things they want to talk about at the care show – let people see what the choices are open to them. Kevin shares information about who is going to exhibit at the show too – some that you would expect, like care services and specialised equipment. Whereas some of the other things you might not have considered - includes will writers and powers of attorney.

We also talk about the idea of a care networking group in the future, to provide a supportive space for care professionals.

For those of you interested in going along to The Care Show Swindon, it’s on January 29, 2026 at the Double Tree by Hilton, starting at 9am. There are still stands available if you’re interested, they are available on the website.

To contact Kevin about The Care Show visit: http://www.thecareshow.co.uk

My podcast guest today is Clare Hodges who works at Blenheim House, part of Berkley Care Group, where she is manager of the 85 bed home.

She has been with Berkley for almost seven years, and talks about how she had a break from Blenheim to oversee another care home within the group, Leicester House in Warwick. As much as she enjoyed seeing another Berkley home, she is glad to be back in Blenheim House.

Blenheim is the biggest home in the Berkley group, and the team look after people with very different needs. The home includes nursing, a dementia unit and a residential environment – to support all the different needs. They’re a regulated home, which means there are always lessons to be learned, and feedback given to the care team. Clare’s biggest passion is about supporting her team, and ensuring an atmosphere of transparency and openness in all they do.

Most of her work is about leading and supporting the team who care for the 85 residents. Clare prefers the word  leader to manager – finding the latter an old-fashioned word and in some ways suggests micromanaging, rather than being able to empower her team to be the best they can.

She talks about the importance of speaking with the family members of residents to ensure that each person receives the best care possible for their loved one. Many of the residents have dementia and no one person behaves in the same way, so they all require their own personal care. She and her team work hard for this to be put in place.

People are at the centre of Clare’s priorities, whether it’s her team, the residents, their families, or the CQC inspector – and she works to address those differing priorities on a daily basis.

To contact Clare:

Website: https://www.berkleycaregroup.co.uk/the-berkley-collection/wiltshire/blenheim-house/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleyhealthcaregroup/

On today's episode of You Care, I Care, I'm talking to Paul Turner who is a lawyer from FT Chronic Pain Solicitors. We haven't known each other long at all but as soon as we realised what each other does we knew there was a synergy. 

Paul explains what he does and explains that although they're personal injury lawyers, they support people to put their lives back together after life-altering injuries. 

He surprises me by saying that some cases are so detailed that they can take four years or longer to come to a solution. When someone suffers life changing injuries their world and that of their family is turned upside down meaning that their financial security disappears and Paul shares a couple of examples where he has helped to change their future due to the results of their claim.

We also talk about Paul's networking group Calibre 100 and how that runs as well as the next speaker coming up.

You can find Paul at https://www.ftchronicpain.co.uk/ and find out more about his networking group at https://www.calibre100.com/

On today's podcast, I'm joined by David Robson of Mark Bates Ltd who are the UK's largest disability insurance broker. David shares that approximately 250,000 people trust Mark Bates Ltd with their insurance, whether it be from a home employment matter, when a customer needs employment liability or public liability, all the way through to home insurance where there are high levels and high value pieces of equipment to help the client live a more independent life.

David has worked in insurance for 15 years and is CII qualified but moved into the disability insurance sector five years ago. Today we discuss many things including the fact that for a lot of people with varying disabilities, it is incredibly difficult for people to get the right insurance for them or the premiums are so ridiculously high, they become unaffordable. 

An important topic that David brings up is that from a home employment perspective, when a service user or a client employs their own care teams, by law, they must have employers' liability. An agency employee will be covered by their insurance but if you employ someone through direct payment they must have their own insurance. David then shares the different types of support that his company gives people including public liability insurance, redundancy support and more. He also points out that if the person doesn't have insurance they can receive a fine of up to £2,000 per day.

We talk about being insured through your bank and something I found out that surprised me is that most banks stop covering you once you turn 70 years old. For a lot of people they still like to travel then and are unaware that they're not insured!

To find out more about Mark Bates Ltd visit www.markbatesltd.com or email David on [email protected]

I’m delighted to welcome back for a third time, David Price, aka Budge.  

It's been a while since we last spoke on the podcast, and unfortunately life still hasn’t settled down.

Budge, Gina and Sam were moving into a bungalow owned by the council. They received the house keys on 18th December, but on the 19th, Gina had to return to hospital. After having a procedure in August, it had failed, and she had a little hole in her head which was leaking fluid, which left her very susceptible to infections. This meant they were stuck in hospital for around three weeks, missing Christmas.

During this time, Budge’s parents and Sam and their son were amazing. While Budge was going backwards and forwards to the hospital to spend time with Gina, Sam started to gradually take things to the new house. Then the three of them were living with Budge’s parents, who had turned over the ground floor of their house to the family.

After a couple of weeks, whilst caring for Gina, and helping Sam move things into the house, they needed to have contractors in doing certain things, because the house had previously been left empty for quite some time. This is when the problems started.

Hearing Budge talk about the issues they found in the house, both before and after council workers had been in the house, is inconceivable when you realise that this is a house that the Council have offered someone with the complex health issues and conditions that Gina lives with. The list of things that needed doing to the house was endless. At one point rooms in the house were actually locked so that Budge and his family couldn’t enter them!

This was a house that it had taken the council a year to find. For Budge and Gina, the system that was supposed to help was just broken!

I’ll be talking to Budge again soon about the issues they’ve also had with continuing support for physio and occupational therapy.

If you want to find out about care in any shape or form you can contact Janet:

Website: https://shreevecareservices.co.uk/

Email: [email protected]

My guest today is Guy Olson from The Equity Release Partnership who talks about why he set up his business and the importance of understanding what it means.

Having worked in financial services and advising on equity release for about 20 years, with Aviva, and The Age Partnership, at a time when equity release was in its infancy, he eventually set up his own brokerage around two years ago.

Equity release is a growing market place, where many people have heard of it but don’t really understand how it works and how it can work for them. Guy spends a lot of time explaining to people what it actually means and the benefits.

Originally it was created to help people pay for care by giving them access to money that wouldn’t otherwise have been available. Then over the years, people have used equity release for other things, such as going on big holidays, paying for family weddings, or building extensions. 

We talk about how now, with the larger number of elderly people in the population, the pressure on social services and on the provision of care is huge. In the past, and in many cultures families helped to provide care for their elders, but in the UK nowadays this isn’t so prevalent, and people are having to pay for their own care. 

Guy believes that schools should teach children about finance from an early age so that they understand about mortgages, pensions, and saving for a house deposit so that they can become financially savvy. He explains that good financial advisers should be talking to people in their 40s and 50s about planning ahead for their retirement.

Guy talks about something close to my heart – the fact that many people want to remain in their own homes. The idea of downsizing for many doesn’t work, because of the emotional attachment to their home. This is where releasing equity can help them to pay for the care in their own homes.

Whether you are nearing retirement age or it seems eons away and not yet relevant to you – this conversation is well worth listening to.

To contact Guy:

Website: www.equityreleasepartnership.co.

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 07583992335

My guest today is someone I met around six months ago – Benson Miyoba, whose business is TWO SEVEN SEVEN.

Benson himself says he’s packed a lot into his 46 years, and the passion for what he is doing now is clear.

After going through a difficult period in his own life and unable to accept help from people, he isolated himself. But, as you’ll hear, Benson likes to solve problems himself – because he is determined. This determination is what has driven him to be doing what he is doing now. He talks about the importance of self-awareness and the need to continue learning. 

Having worked for many other people, and driven by material status whilst working in the commercial sector, he understood that having done that he’d had to sacrifice some of his principles. So when he set up his first business, he decided to set up a nonprofit, CIC; an organisation called The Fitness Garden in High Wycombe.  Working with many different people in the community, the organisation took off and the space created was for local charities to use. As they built momentum, COVID hit.  However, initially, it wasn’t a complete disaster though Benson shares how when things had to close down completely it was a different story.

After the organisation closed down, having built a good relationship with his business partners, with their backing, Benson and his team started to provide projects in and round the community.

His passion is to help young people – particularly those who have been excluded from school and then fall into a void where they get preyed upon by organised gangs. Unlike many people, he doesn’t apportion blame on the schools or parents – it’s the criminals who are doing the damage. What Benson tries to do is find ways to support these young people and engage with them so that they receive support for mentoring sessions, with the income from corporate partners.

He also talks about how it’s not all about big young people in big cities having problems, but also in many leafy, country counties. It’s a countrywide issue. His business TWO SEVEN SEVEN creates models that other people then take on and build on in their own businesses and he’s found ways to get the funding.

Sharing how his business works, Benson’s passion for empowering young people is palpable – he is fighting in their corner. 

To contact Benson visit https://www.benson.coach/

My guest today is Joe Tompkinson of MyMarketr and he’s opening up about his three children and the incredible journey that each one has been on. Joe and his wife, Claire, have George, Eloise and Henry and are based in Swindon.

When you see them on social media, you realised that it would be hard to find a happier family who enjoy spending as much time together as possible going on daytrips and holidays or just sitting at home watching a Disney movie!

Both Joe and Claire carry a gene that means that there is a one in four chance of their children being born deaf and for them, this was their eldest son, George. When he was eighteen months old they made the decision for him to undergo the operation that allowed him to grow up with cochlear implants and an ability to hear although one thing we do talk about is some of the difficulties that George can have when listening in class and the steps that the school have taken to improve those problems.

In 2014, when Eloise was born, they realised that she also had some hearing loss. Over the last few years, she has learnt sign language and how to lip read although these aren’t a way to sustain conversations long term. Last year at a check up Joe and Claire found that Eloise was suffering from significant hearing loss, and they had to decide whether or not to let Eloise have the cochlear implant surgery. As she was old enough to express her feelings on the subject they spoke to Eloise to find out what she wanted to do, and she chose to have the cochlear implants like her big brother. Over the course of this podcast, you’ll hear what happened into the lead up to her operation and then what happened afterwards including Eloise discovering new sounds she’d never heard before – like the dishwasher!

Not to be outdone when Eloise was recovered and the family went to Center Parks in Northern England, their youngest son Henry hadn’t even been there for about an hour when he fell off of his bike and broke his leg meaning he had to stay in hospital for three days of their trip away!

It’s very clear when you’re listening to Joe how much he and Claire love their children and are determined to get the support that they need at school and at home.

This year they gave their children the trip of a lifetime by taking them to Disneyland in Orlando Florida!

If you’d like to get in touch with Joe or myself email [email protected]

Today I’m so happy to share that my guest is a friend, a networking buddy and one of the most human coaches I’ve ever come across!

John Lewis and I met at a PR Day run by fellow business friend Fiona Scott almost three years ago now and have stayed in contact ever since. We’re now chair and vice chair of Businesswise Swindon and our friendship is one of respect, admiration and playful digs!

John runs JL Mindset Performance and coaches a vast range of people from corporate teams to solo business owners to sportsmen and women who need to work on their confidence and mindset ready for the tasks ahead.

He started his business seven years ago and just as things were picking up Covid hit. Luckily John still had his courier business and as they were listed as keyworkers, he was able to continue working and bringing money in to support his family whilst still coaching the clients he had already picked up.

It was during this time that John completed his training to be a mental health first aid trainer and really saw the value in being able to support people at such a difficult and, for many, lonely time.

We talk about John’s work and how he works out if the client/coach relationship is going to work and we touch on one of his events that he has coming up – the Mistermind: a day for men to work on their personal deFELLApment! This is something that I feel is of great need as men really can struggle to take off their hats of husband, father, friend, worker, business owner etc and let their guard down to say “these are my goals” or “this is how I’m feeling right now.” John first ran this day two years ago this month and it was a brilliant success. This year he’ll be running it in November which is International Men’s Day and Men’s Mental Health Month!

I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. To contact John, you can find his details below.

Website: www.jlmindsetperformance.co.uk
Telephone: 07947 808675
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JLmindsetperformance/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_m1nd5et/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-lewis-691917173/