Hospice Support Care in Andover, CT
Non-medical hospice support — homemaker-companion services that complement hospice nursing during a parent's final months at home.
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
You got the call from the hospice nurse on a Tuesday morning, right after dropping your kids at Andover Elementary, and you sat in your car in the parking lot on Route 6 not quite sure what to do next. The nurse explained what comes next medically, but nobody told you how your family was going to cover everything in between the scheduled visits. That gap, the hours when the hospice team isn’t there, is exactly where we work. We come in, we stay present, and we make sure the person you’re caring for is comfortable and not alone.
Hospice support care means we’re there during the time the hospice nurse isn’t. We sit with your person, talk with them if they want to talk, read aloud if that brings comfort, keep them clean and dry, and watch for any changes worth noting for the clinical team. It’s presence with purpose, and it matters more than most families expect until they’re in the middle of it.
Day to day, our aides help with personal hygiene, repositioning, light meals or sips of water, and keeping the environment calm and familiar. If someone returns home after a stay at Manchester Memorial Hospital and enters hospice care shortly after, we can often start within hours of discharge so there’s no period when the family is on their own without support. We coordinate closely with the hospice nursing schedule so nothing falls through the gaps.
Families across Andover often tell us the thing they needed most wasn’t any one task but simply someone reliable who could spell them for a few hours so they could sleep, eat, or be present as a family member rather than a caregiver. We hold that space. Because we were founded by a working nurse, our aides understand clinical signals, know when to escalate, and communicate in the kind of language that hospice teams actually find useful.
Nurse-founded, not corporate
Our founder is a working nurse who saw firsthand what families navigating end-of-life care at home actually needed. The agency was built around that experience, not around a business model. That shapes every hire we make and every match we arrange.
Matched for hospice specifically
We don’t pull a general aide from a roster and send them to a hospice situation. We have aides who are experienced in end-of-life presence, who know how to sit quietly, how to communicate with clinical teams, and how to support a family that’s grieving in real time.
We answer when you call
End-of-life situations don’t keep business hours. When something changes at 2am and you need to talk to someone, we’re reachable. We don’t send you to voicemail and call back in the morning. You get a real person who knows your case.
We know Andover and Tolland County
We know the discharge process at Manchester Memorial Hospital, the roads in and out of Andover, and how to work within the rhythms of a rural Connecticut town. Families here don’t have to explain where they live or wait for someone unfamiliar to find them.
How it works
No intake forms, no sales process. You tell us what’s happening and we listen. We’ll ask a few questions about your person’s current condition, what the hospice team is already handling, and what you need most. That conversation costs nothing and obligates you to nothing.
Hospice support requires a particular kind of person. We don’t assign based on who’s available. We think about temperament, experience with end-of-life care, and how a caregiver’s presence will feel in your home during this time.
When a family in Andover is in a urgent situation, we move fast. Many families have a caregiver in the home within 24 hours of their first call. We don’t believe in making people wait when time matters.
You won’t be handed off and forgotten. We check in regularly, respond when things change, and stay connected to you and to the hospice clinical team. If something shifts, we adjust.
Why families choose us
Every aide is trained and supervised through an RN’s lens — not just placed and forgotten.
Personality fit matters more than skill on paper. We match for temperament, pace, and patience.
No franchise rotation. You work with the people who run this agency — direct, accessible, accountable.
Most families are matched with a caregiver within 24 to 48 hours. When something shifts at home, we move quickly.
We build a daily structure around your parent’s rhythm — meals, walks, evenings — and protect it.
You hear from us, not just the aide. Updates on appetite, sleep, mood, mobility — the things that matter.
Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they're ever placed in a home.
Why families trust us
Private Duty Aides is nurse-founded. Every caregiver clears a multi-step screening — a background check, reference checks, and an in-person interview with our RN founder — before they are ever placed in a home. You get the same consistent caregiver, matched by a nurse, not whoever happens to be available.
Common questions
On a typical day, our aide arrives and checks in with your person, handles any personal care needs like washing, repositioning, or changing, and then stays present through the shift. If your person is awake and wants company, the aide is there for conversation or quiet company. If they're resting, the aide monitors comfort, keeps the room calm, and handles anything that comes up. At the end of each shift, families get a brief update on how things went and anything worth noting for the hospice nurse.
In most cases, we can have a caregiver in place within 24 to 48 hours of your first call. If someone is being discharged from Manchester Memorial Hospital and moving into hospice at home, call us the day before discharge if you can so we can have everything arranged before they arrive home. Same-day starts are possible in urgent situations. We'd rather you call too early than find yourself without support on the first night home.
We're a private-pay agency, so Medicare and most insurance plans don't cover our services directly. Medicare's hospice benefit pays for the clinical hospice team, but it doesn't pay for the additional aide hours that many families need between those visits. Some long-term care insurance policies do cover private-pay home care, so it's worth checking your policy. We'll be upfront about costs before you commit to anything.
A home health aide typically works under a medical plan of care and focuses on skilled-adjacent tasks ordered by a physician. Our hospice support aides are non-medical, but they're specifically experienced in end-of-life settings and work alongside the clinical hospice team rather than independently of it. The focus is comfort, presence, and practical support during the hours when the nurse isn't there. Our nurse-founded background means our aides communicate well with clinical teams and know what to watch for.
Yes, and we take that seriously. We ask questions during your first call about your person's background, temperament, what makes them comfortable, and what doesn't. We use that to select someone who fits, not just someone who's available. If the first match doesn't feel right, we talk about it and adjust. Getting this right matters more than getting it fast, though we try to do both.
We keep you covered. If your regular aide calls out sick or has an emergency, we find a replacement and we introduce them to your situation before they walk through the door. We don't send strangers cold into a hospice home. You'll hear from us before the shift if anything changes, and we stay reachable throughout. Consistency matters in hospice care, and we work hard to protect it.
All home care services in Andover
No sales pressure. We'll tell you straight if we're not a fit.
Private Duty Aides — Andover, CT
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