If you work in palliative care, you already know the gap: the patient is looked after, and the family is left holding everything else. The medication schedule. The appointments. The paperwork. The question of what to say. And nobody asks how they are doing.
Alongside is a free tool you can hand to a family in thirty seconds. No account, no download, no data leaving their phone, nothing for your institution to approve.
What it is
A web app for the family caregiver — not for the clinical team, and not a substitute for it. It helps them hold the practical side of caregiving together, and it makes room for the part that usually gets lost: spending meaningful time with the person, and looking after themselves.
- Task list — the day's caregiving, written down instead of carried in their head
- Medication — what, when, and whether it was given
- Meaningful activities — gentle suggestions adapted to the energy the patient has that day
- Private journal — a place to write what nobody else is asking about
- Medical records — appointments and documents in one place, for when a clinician asks
- Memory PDF — what they wrote, exported as a keepsake
What it is not
Alongside does not give medical advice, does not suggest treatment, does not interpret symptoms, and does not replace the palliative care team. It has no clinical decision support of any kind. It is a companion for the family, not a clinical instrument.
Why it is safe to recommend
This is usually the first question, and it is the right one.
- Nothing is stored on our servers. Tasks, medication, journal entries and activity records stay in the family's own browser. We cannot read their journal, because we never receive it. For medical documents the app stores only a link to a folder the family already keeps in their own Google Drive or Dropbox — the app never opens, uploads to, or has access to that folder.
- No account, no sign-up, no email. Nothing to consent to, no personal data collected.
- No advertising and no paid tier. There is nothing being sold to the family at their most vulnerable moment.
- Nothing for your institution to sign. No data processing agreement, no vendor onboarding, no procurement. You are simply giving someone a link.
How to give it to a family
Send them thealongsideapp.com. That is the whole process. It opens in any browser and can be added to a phone's home screen like an app.
Some teams print the address on the discharge sheet or the home-care folder. Others send it in the same message as the next appointment. Whatever fits how you already communicate.
Languages
English and Spanish, switchable inside the app. Built by a Spanish speaker, so the Spanish is not a translation — it reads as it was written.
Cost
Free, and it will stay free. There is no institutional licence, no per-seat pricing and no upgrade. If your organisation wants to support the project so it stays that way, you can — but nothing changes if you don't.
Want to talk to us? If you work in a hospice, a palliative care unit or a home-care team and want to ask something, suggest something, or tell us it got something wrong — we want to hear it. Use the contact form on the home page.