Connect to Support Hampshire is an online information and advice guide and directory of services for adult residents in Hampshire* to find information, advice and services to manage their own care and wellbeing. You can find out about local groups, activities and services within your community as well as formal care provision.
This website (and the app version which can be downloaded from Google Play or the Apple store ) is owned and managed by Public Consulting Group (UK) Ltd on behalf of Hampshire County Council.
If you are looking for information about Hampshire County Council adult social care services, please visit their Adults' Health and Care web pages.
*This website has been developed primarily for residents who live in the Hampshire County Council area, although our care homes and home care agency directories also cover Portsmouth and Southampton City Council areas.
Residents in Portsmouth and Southampton may also wish to visit the Portsmouth City and Southampton City websites.
There may be cross-border services provided for Hampshire residents who live near the borders with Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset, Wiltshire and Surrey. Use these links to find information and advice about care and support in these areas.
If you are unsure what help and advice you need or where to look, you can use our Information Finder tool. Just click on the sections you would like help with and tick the box against the topics you would like to know more about. The results page will link you to relevant information on this website as well as other websites which may be useful. You can email these links to yourself from the results page to keep as a handy reference.
N.B If you follow the link above to the Information Finder tool whilst in our App, you will be taken to the Connect to Support website and leave the App. This tool will soon be available within the App.
There is a wealth of practical information and advice on this site about health and wellbeing, managing at home, getting out and about and much more.
We do our best to keep this information up to date and we welcome any comments from you about information which is out of date or which you think would be useful. Just click on the ‘Feedback’ button.
There are hundreds of local groups, activities and services in our Community Directory that can help you in your community - from lunch clubs and exercise classes to voluntary groups that will assist you with transport and housework. These types of groups could help you to remain independent and a part of your community.
If you are looking for personal or nursing care to be provided in your own home, you can search for Home care agencies (sometimes called domiciliary care agencies) which provide the services you need in your area. Make sure you read the information about buying from agencies in the Managing at Home section.
If you are looking for a care home or nursing home in your area, you can search the Care homes directory. Make sure you read the section Care homes and other housing options which contains further advice about choosing a care home.
All care homes and agencies providing personal or nursing care must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which monitors and inspects these providers. We suggest that you read the latest registration information and reports on the CQC website. There will be a link to these in all of the search results.
You can select the location you live in or choose a category which would cover the kind of help you are looking for or select both.
When you click on the ‘Choose a category’ box, the main categories will be displayed. Click on one of these (eg ‘Specific needs’) and a list of sub-categories will come up. When you click on one of these (eg ‘Dementia’), results will be shown for every listing we have in that sub-category.
The directory can show results for more than one location at a time but only for one category at a time. So, you can search for ‘ Lunch clubs’ in ‘ Fareham’ and ‘ Gosport’. But you can not search for ‘ Lunch clubs’ and ‘ Social groups’ in ‘ Fareham’ – you would need to select the Location and search for Lunch clubs and then for Social groups.
We find that the most accurate and relevant search results will be returned by selecting a category. However, you can also use the search bar to find information in the Community Directory. Click on the magnifying glass symbol to bring this up.
The search bar can be useful if:
It is always best if you just put a
Sometimes people know the name of a particular group they are looking for (for example, a “Singing for the Brain” group which is run by the Alzheimers Society). The website, however, is intended for Hampshire residents who are unaware of local support and services which are available and would therefore not be searching for specific activities or groups by name. The aim of the website is to enable you to find such local support.
Example: If you have been diagnosed with Alzheimers, you can search for ‘Dementia’ using the sub-category under ‘Specific needs’ or enter ‘dementia’ or ‘alzheimers’ in the search bar. You can then filter to the area in which you live.
Some local groups and activities are also based in Church halls, community centres etc. We have described which activities take place at these venues in the listing description (and they will be tagged with appropriate categories) so they will be found in searches. For example, a search for 'Memory cafe' will bring up the venues where these are held.
If you believe that a local group or service cannot be found via a main listing, please use the blue feedback button at the bottom of this page to give us details.
We do not duplicate information in our directory if it is held and maintained elsewhere. We aim to signpost to the source of the information to ensure that users will always find the most up to date and accurate information. So, instead of creating over 120 separate entries in our directory for each local good neighbour group, we have one listing for the 'Good Neighbours Network' which links to their ‘Find a group’ page where users can easily find their local group.
We created two separate tabs for search results – ‘Local’ and ‘National’ – as users told us they wanted to see local groups and services before National charities and helplines etc. However, some national charities are umbrella organisations for local groups and branches and details of these can be found via their website. Where this is the case, this listing will appear in the ‘Local’ tab and there will always be a link to the relevant page on their website to search for local support.
You can search by postcode for care homes. This type of search works in the care homes directory because all of the homes are at a fixed location. We have, therefore, been able to provide
In the community directory and home care directory, many service providers cover different areas and their own addresses are at locations which may not reflect the areas they cover. For example, a user in Andover searching for services close to their own postcode would not bring up countywide services such as Age Concern Hampshire. They may, therefore, miss important services which are available to them.
If you are looking for very local services at fixed locations (eg community centres, church halls etc) in a particular area, you can put the place name in the search bar (for example: Chandlers Ford or Romsey) although we would advise against using this to search for services such as befriending, dementia help etc for the reasons above.
When you select one of the district or borough council districts as a filter, the listings shown will be groups and activities which are accessible to residents living in that area. They are not necessarily services based in that area. For example, if you were searching for accommodation advice, Age Concern Hampshire (based in Winchester) would be in the results, whichever area you filtered by.
You can use the ‘My favourites’ button on any page of the website, including search results, to gather pages together to print out as a booklet. This is not yet available on the app.
When you are on the page you wish to add, Click on the ‘My favourites’ button and then click ‘Add to
