Christies Care Stowmarket

Home care is care that you receive in your own home on a live-in or hourly basis. Having home care promotes independence and means that you can stay in your own home, with the pets, garden, friends and live in familiar surroundings.

The role of a home carer is to give someone the help and support they need to be as independent as possible; to live as full a life as possible. A home carer visit on an hourly basis or live-in with you and will help with housekeeping, cooking, running errands, help with washing and dressing as well as other daily tasks to give the person being cared for the best possible life. The best home carers are people who really care about people, who understand what they really want and who work hard to help their clients to be happy.

Everyone is treated as an individual and next of kin are not liable for home care fees (or even care home fees). However, families may well find themselves contributing something towards the cost of care, either because they don’t meet the bar that allows the state to pay, or because they want better quality care than the state will provide, and so they top up at their own expense.

Home care is where an individual receives the car they need in their own home without the need to move. This can help to promote independence for the person receiving care. A care home is when someone has to move away from their own home, when there they receive the care they need to stay healthy.

The most common home care service is hourly visiting home care. If an individual needs a little bit of help, a carer comes in and gives them the help they need to carry on living an independent life. This hourly visiting home care can be from as little as an hour a week to several hours a day, entirely depending on the care receivers wants and needs. Live-in care is increasingly common, as people realise that even if you need full-time care, having a live-in carer means you can stay in your own home and you can avoid leaving your surroundings for a care home.

Home care can be seen as expensive because it depends on the carers who do a demanding yet rewarding job. In order to recruit and retain qualified carers, they must be paid enough. Paying carers too little is a false economy. For most care providers, carer wages (including travel and the on-costs of employment) make up 60-75% of revenue, with pay for the co-ordinators, trainers and others to keep the organisation going, taking up almost all of the rest.