Live-in care costs.
Live-in care costs for an individual in their own home provided by a CQC-registered provider are likely to be anywhere between £1100 and £1400 a week. The charges will vary depending on where in the country the care is required; live-in care generally costs more in the southern half of the country and substantially more again in Greater London and the Home Counties.
If care is required for a couple, live-in care at home may cost half as much as residential care, typically costing from £1,200 to £1,600 a week compared with £2,000 to £3,000 a week in a care home.
The cost of live-in care v residential care
Research we conducted in March, 2022 and based on a sample of care homes in Essex and Cambridgeshire, indicates that the cost of residential care in these counties for a single person ranges from £1000 to £1700 a week, depending on the size of the room and the other facilities offered by the home. Of those which do quote prices, most seem to be charging around £1300 a week, although this is likely to rise in April, 2022, when new minimum wage rates comes into effect across the UK.
Regulated and unregulated live-in care agencies
You may notice from your own research that certain care agencies charge far less than the rates quoted above. The cheaper agencies work by introducing self-employed carers and charging a separate and weekly recurring agency fee. They are totally unregulated and merely serve as a recruitment platform for self-employed carers. As the name suggests, a self-employed carer is a free agent and works for him- or herself – not for the carer introduction agency and not for you either. Their work is not supervised or even monitored by the care agency and there is no regulator to complain to if things go badly wrong. We are unapologetic in advising all clients to steer clear of carer introduction agencies, as we strongly believe in a properly managed and regulated care system.
The regulated care system model
The advantage of choosing a CQC-regulated care provider such as Chesterford Homecare is that you will benefit from a fully-managed service, which effectively means that the care provider will take full responsibility for every aspect of the service they provide. The big problem with introduction agencies is that the daily monitoring of the care is outsourced to you, the client.
The unregulated care system model
A self-employed carer will not have been through any sort of official vetting or assessment process by the agency and neither will they have been given any formal training in the agency’s policies, procedures and ways of working. They will not be subject to any monitoring or supervision and no one from the agency’s management team will ever visit you to find out how things are going. The reason for this is simple: introduction agencies do not have management teams: management teams are a cost and introduction agencies are all about minimising cost and maximising profit.
With a CQC-regulated care provider, you can rely on all of the following being included as standard:
- A full care needs assessment will be undertaken prior to the care starting
- Full details of the care agreed will be recorded in a comprehensive care plan which is kept in the property and can be reviewed at any time by clients and family members.
- The care provided each day will be in accordance with the care plan and will be subject to regular review.
- The carer appointed will have been fully police-vetted and reference-checked prior to employment.
- They will also have received formal training in all the key areas of health and social care
- The care they provide will be regularly monitored by the care provider’s management team, both electronically in real time and by regular home visits
- The provider’s carers will be provided with all necessary PPE and encouraged to undertake regular Covid testing to reduce the risk of infection to others.
- The provider’s carers will all be treated fairly, with entitlement to paid holiday, a company pension scheme and statutory sick pay.
- When the main carer needs to take a break after an agreed number of weeks, the choice of relief carer will be made in good time to allow a proper handover to be undertaken.
- If a carer needs to leave at short notice because of a sudden emergency in their personal life, a replacement will be provided as soon as possible to maintain continuity of care
- Should compatibility issues arise with an individual carer, they will be replaced at the first available opportunity
- If anything goes wrong, all CQC-registered care providers have a formal Complaints Procedure and should you ever feel the need to complain, the provider is duty bound to investigate the matter with a view to achieving mutually acceptable resolution within a reasonable timescale.
- In addition, you have the security of knowing that the industry regulator, the Care Quality Commission, keeps a close eye on the handling of complaints by the providers it regulates as part of its inspection process.
- If all else fails, you have the reassurance of knowing that your care provider carries substantial public liability insurance, typically for £10 million.
Chesterford Homecare Live-in Care Costs
Live-in Care Service
Weekly Cost From
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Live-in care for one person from £1,295
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Live-in care for a couple from £1,400
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Respite live-in care for a minimum period of 3 days from £600
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Respite live-in care for periods of a week or longer from £1,400
Respite care booked in advance for periods of four weeks or more are charged at our normal long-term rate.
You may also want to read our article on available benefit or funding
