A small Caversham agency, since 1968.
A short history of a small business that has been doing the same thing, in the same place, for nearly six decades.
Gardiner’s was founded in Caversham in 1968 by Dorothy Gardiner. The business began as a nursing agency, and was run from an office on Church Street. We’ve been in the same office ever since.
In 1984, Dorothy was appointed MBE for her contribution to standards of care in the independent nursing sector.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, the wider sector changed. The NHS moved long‑term care out of hospitals, and a new kind of work emerged for the practical, daily help older people needed in their own homes — not always clinical, often as much about company as anything else.
The business followed that change. Over time it stopped being a nursing agency and became a home care provider, offering the everyday support that lets people stay in their own houses for longer. The skills overlap, but the work is different. It is less about treatment and more about presence.
The work itself has barely changed. Someone needs help. Someone arrives, on time, and helps.
Gardiner’s is family‑run and independent. We operate two CQC‑registered branches from the same office Dorothy ran the business from — visiting care across Berkshire and South Oxfordshire, and live‑in care across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire. Most of our office team came up through care themselves; many of our carers have been with us for the best part of a decade.
One detail that always strikes us: a number of the people we now look after used to work here. Carers who joined Gardiner’s decades ago are now, in their own old age, on the other side of the relationship.
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