24-hour care at home: the ways to cover day and night, and what each costs

Twenty-four hour care means there is somebody in your relative's home at every hour, so they are never left alone. It does not say whether that person is awake at three in the morning or asleep down the landing, and it does not say how many people are involved. Those two details move the weekly cost from about £1,120 to more than £2,688, so it is worth asking about both whenever somebody quotes you for 24-hour care.

This page starts from live-in care, the simplest of the arrangements and the least expensive. It is one arrangement within care at home, alongside hourly visits and overnight care, and what the care words mean explains the wider vocabulary if the discharge letter used terms you have not met before.

The jump between the first rung and the second is the decision that matters most for the budget. One live-in carer can look after somebody who settles at night, because they get a night's sleep and are ready to work the next morning. Once your relative needs them three or four times a night, most nights, that carer is working the day and the night, and it cannot go on for long. A second carer awake through the night costs about £1,036 a week on top of the live-in rate, and live-in care or 24-hour care goes through the signs that one carer is no longer enough.

Not every family needs every night covered. If your relative has two or three bad nights a week, a waking night carer on those nights alone costs much less than seven, and the rota and cost of seven nights a week shows how the figure builds up night by night. Families who can manage the days themselves sometimes start with nights only, which is about £1,050 to £1,120 a week for seven waking nights.

The full set of weekly, monthly and yearly figures for each arrangement, with what to budget on top, is in what 24-hour care at home costs. For care that involves a feeding tube, suction, or anything a nurse has to train carers on, 24-hour complex care teams covers the fifth rung in detail.

If your relative has dementia and the evenings and nights are getting harder, 24-hour dementia care at home covers when that point is reached and how families arrange it, and what sundowning is explains why late afternoon and evening can be the hardest hours. For the night itself, waking night or sleeping night explains where the line between the two falls, and falls and toilet trips at night covers the most common reason families first add a night carer.

Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed. The client contract leaves rest breaks for the carer to manage, and says that for live-in care the carer should have opportunities for rest, at times the two of you can agree. If suitable times are proving difficult, the contract expects you and the carer to talk about changing the schedule rather than for the carer to go without. The live-in carer's daily break and how many hours a live-in carer works cover what a normal day looks like, and what live-in carers are entitled to lists what is worth agreeing before the first week.

If you employ somebody yourself rather than booking a self-employed carer, you take on an employer's duties, including the legal rest breaks for workers: 11 hours of rest between working days and a weekly rest period. Employing a carer: the legal and financial side sets out what else comes with that.

A care home fee includes the room, the food, the heating and the laundry, and when your relative stays at home those bills stay with them, so add them back before you call the first bar cheaper. Over a year the gap between the rungs grows large: one live-in carer is about £4,853 a month, and a live-in carer with waking nights is about £9,343.

Families choose home for reasons that do not show on a bar chart: their own bed, one or two familiar faces, a husband or wife still in the same house, a dog that can stay. Those reasons are allowed to count, as long as you have seen the figures first. For a couple the comparison shifts, because one live-in carer for two people costs about £1,350 a week, against two care home places; live-in care for couples covers how that works. Is live-in care cheaper than a care home? works the comparison through in full, and when home care stops being enough is a fair read if the nights are becoming more than any arrangement at home can hold.

1. 1

   Claim Attendance Allowance at the higher rate

   Not means-tested

   For people over State Pension age. The higher rate, £114.60 a week in 2026/27, is for help or supervision throughout both the day and the night. The lower rate, £76.70, is for help during the day or supervision at night. Savings and income make no difference.
2. 2

   Ask for an NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist

   Not means-tested

   Where the main need is a health need, the NHS can fund the whole package, including care in your relative's own home. Ask the GP, the district nurse or the hospital discharge team for the checklist.
3. 3

   Ask the council for a needs assessment

   Free, and anyone can ask

   A social worker looks at what your relative needs. A financial assessment follows, and in England the upper capital limit is £23,250. The value of the home is ignored while your relative lives in it.
4. 4

   If the council contributes, ask for direct payments

   So you choose the carer

   The council pays its contribution to you rather than arranging a care company itself, so you can choose the carer and keep the same one.
5. 5

   Ask for a carer's assessment for yourself

   Free, over 18

   If you have been doing the nights, the council can assess what would help you, separately from your relative's own needs.

Attendance Allowance is the quickest step and the one worth starting today, because it is not tied to any arrangement. Describe your relative's nights as they are on a bad week, not a good one; the gov.uk page on what you will get sets out both rates. NHS Continuing Healthcare is for people whose needs are mainly health needs, and it can be provided at home. You can ask the council for a needs assessment online. During the assessment, describe the nights in detail and ask how the council would cover them.

Our guide to the different types of care funding puts every route in one place, and how to privately fund care covers paying for it yourselves.

Every carer on PrimeCarers has had an ID check, a right to work check and an enhanced DBS check issued within the last two years (PVG in Scotland, Access NI in Northern Ireland), and has been interviewed online. Separately, carers are insured while they work. We do not check qualifications, training or references. Reviews from PrimeCarers bookings and references a carer has collected from past families can both appear on a profile, and neither is verified by us, so ask each carer about their experience and training yourself. How should I interview live-in carers? has the questions worth asking.

Waking night carers are found through a separate search from live-in carers. Overnight care explains how night carers work and what they charge, and night care so the family carer can sleep is worth reading if you have been covering the nights yourself. A night carer who works alongside a live-in carer needs to know the evening routine, where the notes are kept and what the live-in carer wants to hear about in the morning, so introduce them to each other before the first night.

When two or more carers share the week, somebody has to hold the rota. Live-in care rotas sets out the cycles families use and what a handover day needs, and how many carers a rota needs does the arithmetic. If you would like help with it, the optional managed service adds 5% to the rate for monthly reviews and help with scheduling, and Fully Managed, for live-in care only, adds 10%. If care has to start within days, emergency live-in care covers what to do first.