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Call us on 01788 422422Office Monday to Friday, 9:00am – 5:00pm · On-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
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Care at home
Live-in care lets someone stay in their own home when the alternative would be moving into a care home. It works well, and it asks more of the household than most websites admit.
A carer lives in the home and is there through the day for personal care, meals, medication, company and keeping the house running. It suits someone who needs support present most of the time but does not need clinical nursing.
This is the part that gets glossed over. The carer needs their own bedroom — a proper room with a door, not a sofa or a shared space — and somewhere to eat and store food. They also need genuine breaks during the day, usually around two hours, which means someone else being around or the person being safe alone for that time. If those things are not possible, live-in care is not the right answer and we would rather say so before you commit to it.
A live-in carer sleeps at night. They can get up if they are needed occasionally, but if someone needs help several times every night, that is waking night care and it needs two people, not one. Sold as live-in, it burns the carer out in weeks and the care falls apart. If that is the level of need, we will tell you and price it properly.
Live-in carers work in blocks and then go home. We aim to rotate the same small number of people rather than send whoever is free, so the person is not starting again every fortnight, and we plan handovers so knowledge passes between them.
We would rather you knew this now than found out later.
We are one part of this. These are the people who do the things we cannot, and they are free.
Any clinical care at home — wounds, injections, catheters — sits with them, not with a live-in carer.
Can assess needs and may contribute to the cost. A financial assessment is separate from the needs assessment.
Ring us and be honest about the nights. It is the single biggest factor in whether live-in care will work, and it is the thing people most often play down.
Worried about the cost? The council pays towards care at home for more people than realise it, and Attendance Allowance is not means-tested at all. See how paying for care works.