This month Five Good Friends Helpers completed the one millionth visit to a Members home.

It was only seven years ago that the first Member opened their door to a Five Good Friends Helper. To be invited and trusted into people's homes one million times is a humbling honour.

Five Good Friends was inspired by the now famous Blue Zones study. It identified friendship as the key to a long happy and healthy life. As the leader of the study, Dan Buettner, said "....friendships add life to our years and years to our life...." This became our purpose. To keep people connected to, and engaged with, the friends, family, loved ones, communities and homes they love for as long as they desire.

This purpose supported our understanding of our customer. In many cases there is a trusted friend, loved one or family member who is an important part of a Member's life. These people are also providing caring support and help. They want to remain involved and kept informed. Our service must understand and respect this relationship.

We also started Five Good Friends with the belief that technology could make a difference. That it could help make the experience transparent and flexible. It could provide our Members and their trusted loved ones with greater control and keep them informed. We believed that simple, easy to use technology could enhance the skills of the Helper, deliver better oversight and distribute expertise to a greater number of people.

There is a significant amount of thought, skill and daily effort that goes into ensuring Members are well supported. This includes their first contact with us, the daily interactions with every team member, the accuracy of their statements, the considered help plans and responses to observations; the organisation and delivery of services from partners and our ongoing continuous improvement.

To this day, the greatest influence over the experience of Five Good Friends, is the Helper. This drove our model of matching and underpins its importance. The same consistent, well matched, kind and skilled Helper gives comfort and builds trust.

We are grateful to every Member, their family and loved ones for trusting Five Good Friends. We are grateful to every Helper on the Five Good Friends platform who has provided help and support.

We will continue to work hard to honour and respect the trust of our Members. To keep people connected to the friends, loved ones, families, homes and communities they love. Because we know, while one million visits is a wonderful milestone, friendship and connection is what really counts.

Simon and Nathan

Co-founders Five Good Friends