A note from the founder
Why DailyChinwag exists
My nan had dementia.
It moved fast. She’d forget things within minutes. Then she started forgetting to eat. She became malnourished, and then we lost her.
Years before that, I had a job collecting newspaper money door to door. Most of my round was pensioners, and I learned quickly that no visit took two minutes. I’d knock to collect fifty pence and leave an hour later, having heard about the war, the shipyards, a husband gone twenty years, a daughter in Australia. They never wanted anything from me.
They just wanted someone to listen.
Those two things sat side by side in my head for years. Connection is the thing older people want most, and the absence of it isn’t just sad, it’s dangerous. Loneliness stops people eating. It hides falls, scams, and illness because there’s nobody to mention them to. It kills quietly.
DailyChinwag is my answer: a friendly voice on the phone, as often as every day, that never runs out of time or patience.
What it actually is
A companion, with a name, a voice, and an accent your mum or dad chooses, rings them on the schedule you set. On their normal phone. No app, no internet, no gadget on the mantelpiece.
It listens far more than it talks. It remembers everything: the trifle recipe, the neighbour’s cat, what the doctor said last Tuesday, and picks the thread up next call. If they tell the same story three times, it’s delighted all three times. And after every call, you get a short email telling you how they’re doing.
And we’re honest about what it is. The companion is a computer, it’s introduced as one, and if they ever ask, it says so: warmly, and then gets back to the chat. We think the people we call deserve the truth, and we’ve found the truth doesn’t spoil the friendship one bit.
What it isn’t
It isn’t a personal alarm, and it never replaces one. It isn’t a carer, a nurse, or a doctor, and it never gives medical advice. It’s the friendly call that happens alongside all of that, and because someone’s actually chatting with them so often, it turns out to be a remarkable tripwire. Not eating? Had a little fall? A “nice man from the bank” on the other phone asking for their card numbers? You’ll know the same day, because they mentioned it to their friend.
DailyChinwag is here to support people who feel lonely, not to replace real human connection: a bit of extra company between the visits, activities and care they already have.
The promise
Every call summarised for family. Anything worrying flagged to you straight away, exactly the way we agreed in writing when you signed up. Everything on the record. Nothing pretending to be what it isn’t.
That’s it. That’s the company.
Liam Hunter, founder
For everybody’s nan
Works alongside pendant alarms, never instead of one. See how it works or what it costs.