Locals in need of an extra helping hand at home may have just found a solution.

That's because CareYourWay, an award-winning family-run home care provider, has opened a new branch covering Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Handforth, Altrincham, Bowdon, Hale, Hale Barns, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Gatley, Bramhall, Sale, Wythenshawe, Baguley, Partington and the Manchester Airport area.

Their aim is to help clients 'live happily at home' - whether they need a half hour of extra help per day, or if they need full 24-hour care - all while keeping them in the comfort and familiarity of their own space as opposed to a care home.

The business was started in 2005 in Devon by husband and wife team Sarah and Manuel Sabater, after a terminally-ill loved one in their family received less-than-adequate care at another provider.

Determined to offer something better for people in a similar position, they started CareYourWay to do just that. Since then, they've opened 16 franchises across the UK, including this new one in Wilmslow.

As CareYourWay franchise development manager Michelle Hoare explains, the aim is to provide compassionate, quality care for clients - but in the comfort of their own home.

"People live their dreams with us", she explained. "If they want to go for a day out, and have fish and chips for lunch, they can."

"When you go into a care home, you're told when to get up, what time you have breakfast, when you can go out, and so on.

"The environment is completely different to their own homes.

"At home you can get up when you want, eat when you want, they can go out for a stroll - in a care home all of that is much harder."

This is not to say, however, that the level of care is any different at home as opposed to in a care facility.

The CareYourWay team make a point of treating all their clients like they would a family member.

Indeed, for Rajiv and Neelima - directors of CareYourWay Wilmslow, the decision to bring the franchise to the area was far from just a business one.

Neelima's father lived with Motor Neurone Disease for seven years, with little professional support available to the family; years later she took a career break to care for her mother through the final stages of a cancer diagnosis.

Rajiv experienced a similar loss when his father passed away following complications from open-heart surgery.

Those experiences left them asking how families could be better supported through those moments - a question that became the foundation for bringing CareYourWay Wilmslow to the area.

And, as manager Nadeeka Jayasinghe explains, the team at CareYourWay work there because they genuinely like helping people.

"I'm always so happy to go to a client's house and support them", she said.

"We can help make their quality of life excellent."

This can be anything from a small helping hand with housework, through to full overnight care - the quality of which is testified by the clients themselves.

"They're lovely", one resident said. "Every one of them - I couldn't fault a single one.

"I couldn't manage without them."

And it's not just supporting clients individually - fully aware of the risk of loneliness for some clients living alone, CareYourWay Wilmslow will be hosting regular social clubs to help create a friends group of people in a similar position.

This can be anything from lunches out, through to arts and crafts afternoons - the important thing is combatting loneliness.

For other CareYourWay clients in similar clubs elsewhere in the country, it's the first time they've left home since suffering shock or illness, and immediately turns into a highlight of their week and a ready source of new pals.

In a similar vein, CareYourWay also gives out Christmas hampers to clients across the country who may be facing loneliness during the festive season.

Their 'Present for a Pensioner' campaign launched in 2016, and since then has helped thousands of people across the country.

The recipients don't even have to be clients; they are nominated by NHS healthcare professionals - during last Christmas alone, 260 hand-made hampers were given out by the CareYourWay team.

The new Wilmslow branch is looking forward to bringing the same scheme to local residents.

Once again, all of it speaks to the company's aim of keeping people happy at home.

And, now they're here in Wilmslow, local clients can enjoy a bit of that ethos for themselves - it could be home care, live-in care, palliative care, dementia care, or companionship.

Find more information about CareYourWay on their website here.