Tips to help you choose a home care service

How Can Home Care Services Help?

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:

• • Any health conditions, impairments, or disabilities

• • What you can or can’t do or struggle to do

• • Current living and support arrangements

• • What sort of support would you prefer?

Finding a Home Care Service

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:

Using your parents’ postcode, you can use the relevant regulator to generate a short list of home care services local to them.

Shortlisting Home Care Service Providers  

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:

• • Outstanding

• • Good

• • Requires improvement

• • Inadequate

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.

Information to Help You Choose a Home Care Service

When choosing a home care service, consider the following information:

• • The nature  and level of help required – what, when, and how often?

• • The cost of that help

• • The quality of care being provided

The Nature and Level of Support Required

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 Cost of the Home Care Service

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 £23.20 per hour. Prices are often different at weekends and bank holidays.

Judging the Quality of Home Care Provided

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.”

Service providers will often undertake a needs assessment

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

• • How will the service ensure that the same care workers visit to enable familiarity and avoid a trail of strangers entering the home?

• • How and when will the service get in touch to advise about any changes to the care arrangements (e.g., timing, people, price)?

• • What contingency arrangements will be put in place in case a care worker is late or missed a visit?

• • What sort of training and support is given to the home care workers?

• • How can the home care package be adjusted if something needs changing?