Home support: care services in your home
Home-care agencies offer people a care worker in their own homes to help meet a range of needs. They are registered with the Care Quality Commission and subject to inspections of their services, resulting in CQC published inspection reports.
Home-care agencies offer a wide variety of care, ranging from home-care support (eg support with cleaning, preparing food and meals, shopping) through various aspects of personal care (eg help with dressing/undressing, getting in and out of bed, washing and bathing, taking medication.)
Other alternative ways of obtaining home support include hiring a personal assistant or obtaining homecare from charities.
Care services in your home
The NHS Choices website has a useful page about care services in your home. It includes suggested questions to ask when using a home-care agency, and also has information about alternatives such as hiring a personal assistant or obtaining homecare from charities.
Details of organisations providing home support
A searchable list of home-care agencies and charities offering home support can be found in the Living Independently section of the Adult Social Care Information Directory.
Paying for home support
Home-care agencies will charge for their services. Should you seek a referral for adult social care support from the council to meet your needs, and the assessment finds you require care and support, you would be likely to have to pay the full cost of your care and support if you have savings or capital of more than £23,250. If you have savings of less than this amount you are likely to have to contribute towards the cost of your care and support.
Further guidance on can be found on the Council website page on financial assessment for non-residential care and support.