A phone call from his 88-year-old grandmother Daphne inspired 24-year-old Adam Wise to set up his own business.

“She would call me saying ‘something is seriously wrong with my TV’ so I would travel 20 minutes across town to her house only to find the batteries in the remote needed changing,” he said.

“I thought ‘there has got to be someone she can call’ and that is where my business came from.”

Mr Wise launched Telecura last month, a hotline giving a helping hand to vulnerable people across Kent and, ambitiously, the whole of the UK.

The idea is to provide clients information like appointment times, phone numbers, opening hours and bus times while also offering basic problem-solving.

“After investigation it became clear there is a gap in the market for someone on call to help with basic problems,” said Adam, who set up the business with his father Peter and his friend Ian Jackson.

“There are some charities like Age UK who offer support but none who store details and provide local information quickly. We can be an address book so people only have to call one number.

“We can troubleshoot basic problems and if there is anything we can’t help with – like legal or medical advice – we can act like a directory inquiries for them.”

The unique selling point is the service is free at the point of use. Users pay £10 a month but can call the freephone number as many times as they like during opening hours of 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.

The business officially launched on August 1, although it is yet to attract its first subscriber.

“People are going to be sceptical about paying £10 a month for this because no one else does it,” said Adam, of Kent Avenue, Sittingbourne.

“It’s a complete nightmare to get the company name out there. We had one guy ring who just needed details of a wheelchair supplier where he lived but he wouldn’t sign up for £10 a month because he only needed one problem solved.

"The more and more I speak to people the more and more I see the need...” Telecura founder Adam Wise

“But the more and more I speak to people the more and more I see the need.”

Adam quit his job of three years at a call centre in Kent Science Park to set up the company, where he developed customer service skills he thinks he can apply to his new business venture.

However, it was his experience working at Doubleday Lodge care home in Sittingbourne for eight months as a teenager which convinced him of the value of the project. He felt many of the people there could have been capable of looking after themselves with some remote help.

He said: “I did it just to earn money but then I started to realise that many residents didn’t necessarily need to be in there but their siblings or partners couldn’t deal with them.

"That is also where the foundations of the idea came from. We want to make money but it’s a business with a genuine cause for concern.”

For details on Telecura visit www.telecurauk.co.uk or call 0330 055 3731.