How KareHero Supported a Carer Navigating the UK System Following a Hospital Discharge

Mike Brook had a career, a routine, a life that was ticking along fine. 

Then, without warning, all of that changed. His mum needed him, and nothing in his working life had prepared him for what came next. "It's the emotional and mental challenge that I didn't expect," he says.

It started quietly, the way these things often do.

His mum began eating less. Then less again. 

No amount of encouragement made a difference, and soon the worry followed Mike everywhere, even into his working day - pulling him off conference calls to try, and fail, to get her to eat. 

Each visit she seemed a little weaker than the last, and Mike felt the frustration of watching it happen and not being able to fix it.

For his mum, the fear ran even deeper. 

One day it became too much for her to hold in. She broke down in tears, terrified that if she couldn't start eating, she'd end up in a care home.

Then she was admitted to hospital, and everything Mike had been managing alone suddenly felt bigger than he could handle. 

That's when he reached out to KareHero.

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What happened next took some of the weight off his shoulders. KareHero drew up a shortlist of care homes nearby and arranged the visits, so Mike didn't have to face that search on his own. "As painful as it was, that was a great help," he says. 

When it came time for his mum to leave hospital, KareHero explained exactly what the discharge process would involve once she was released from the NHS reablement team, so Mike wasn't left guessing his way through it.

Stories like Mike's are the reason KareHero exists. 

Our founder, Stephanie, built KareHero after years of watching carers go through this alone: managing someone else's wellbeing from the moment they wake until the moment they sleep - and often while holding down a job and raising children of their own.

"It's a very lonely journey," she says. "Most people just accept that it's part of life, just part of being a ‘good’ spouse, a ‘good’ sibling, a ‘good’ daughter or son."

She wanted that to change.

"I built KareHero because I don't want anyone to go through what I went through. I became my parents' default family caregiver at 14, and have navigated the challenges of caregiving throughout my entire professional career. We're real people with experience of care behind the scenes, to help you go through every step of the journey, so that you are never alone."

For Mike, that meant one less thing to face by himself, at a time when he had nothing left to give.

🔗 Watch the full interview here:

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