Home care services – how much do they cost?
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Home care services tend to focus on everyday basic activities with an emphasis on personal care i.e. eating, drinking, toileting, washing and bathing, dressing, mobilising from bed to chair to toilet. Some home care service providers might also help with grocery shopping, administering medicines or providing companionship.
The care these services offer will be based on an assessment of what care is needed – otherwise known as a “needs assessment”. A care needs assessment will take into account:
If your parents cannot get financial assistance from their Local Authority then you/they will need to find and organise an appropriate service provider.
In the UK, all home care services are registered with a national regulator. You can find the relevant regulator and all the care services they have registered at the following websites:
Service location | Regulator and website |
England | The Care Quality Commission (CQC) |
Northern Ireland | The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) |
Scotland | The Care Inspectorate (CIS) |
Wales | The Care Inspectorate (CIW) |
Using your parents’ postcode, you can use the relevant regulator to generate a short list of home care services local to them.
The home care service regulators conduct regular inspections of the quality of care being provided. Their inspection reports are publicly available and will give you plenty of information about who provides the services and how good they are.
Although each regulator has its own approach, services tend to be rated on a four-point scale:
The regulator information will also give you the contact details for each home care service, and help you to decide which home care services you want to contact. Sometimes inspection reports can be rather dated, so do take this into account when judging how relevant they are in the here and now.
Be prepared to shop around, but bear in mind that there is generally a shortage of home care services, and you might not be able to get the one you would ideally prefer.
After that, your choice will be shaped by a combination of personal preference and information.
When choosing a home care service, consider the following information:
The type of home care required will depend on how much your parents can do for themselves as well as how much support they can rely on from others such as yourself, and other relatives, friends, and neighbours. They might also be accessing support from a local community group, church, or charity.
You will then need to consider how often they need help each day and whether this is the same at weekends and bank holidays.
The home care association provides information about minimum prices for home care services here.
A lot of home care services charge by the session – according to a half hour or hour slot – the current recommended minimum price for homecare is £28.53 per hour. Prices are often different (higher!) at weekends and bank holidays.
This is probably the hardest judgement to make because it is subjective. You will need to ask plenty of questions and “trust your gut” to decide which will be best.
Wherever possible, get “word of mouth” feedback from anyone who has direct experience using the service – this sort of information is invaluable.
Be wary of published client feedback. Any profitable business is unlikely to promote and publish all of the negative comments from its clients.
You have already considered the regulator’s inspection reports, but bear in mind that very few services are rated excellent, although many are judged to be good. You might want to think carefully about services that “need improvement” or are rated “inadequate.”
Be prepared to attend a “needs assessment” appointment so that you can help your parent(s) explain their needs and understand how you or others might need to help any care workers e.g., by filling the fridge with suitable foods.
During the needs assessment or during your initial contact, you can helpfully explore the following
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Published May 2023, updated June 2024
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