Hours, breaks and time off as a self-employed live-in carer

The Working Time Regulations 1998 are the law behind the 48-hour week and the rest breaks. They apply to a "worker", which regulation 2 defines as somebody working under a contract of employment, or under a contract to do work personally for someone who is not a client or customer of their own business. A carer running their own business and taking private clients is outside that definition, provided the arrangement is self-employed in fact and not only in name.

gov.uk puts it plainly on its page about self-employed status: employment law does not cover self-employed people in most cases, and they do not have the rights and responsibilities of employees or workers. They do keep protection of their health and safety, protection against discrimination in some cases, and the rights in their contract with the client.

The figures in the left-hand column come from gov.uk's pages on rest breaks at work and maximum weekly working hours, and the break itself is in regulation 12. Even for employed staff there are exceptions: gov.uk notes that domestic workers in a private house are not entitled to rest breaks for health and safety reasons, and regulation 19 takes somebody employed as a domestic servant in a private household out of the 48-hour limit and the night work rules. So a live-in carer employed directly by a family has less protection than people tend to assume.

None of this means a self-employed carer has no limits. It means the limits are the ones you set and agree. The law leaves you to decide how long a day you can work safely, when you rest, how many weeks you do in a row, and what you need from the family for that to happen. The rest of this guide is about agreeing those things and holding to them.

The contract's Breaks clause is short, and it is worth knowing in its own words. As a self-employed contractor, you are responsible for managing your own rest breaks. Where a break is needed, you may agree suitable times with the client, but you keep discretion over your own rest. For live-in care, it is generally expected that you will have opportunities for rest, which you and the client may agree between yourselves. The timing and structure of your rest are yours, and are not monitored or directed by the client. If suitable times for rest are proving difficult, you and the client may discuss changes to the schedule.

In practice that gives you two things. You decide how you rest, and the family is expected to make rest possible. What it does not do is set a number, and that is why the conversation before the placement matters.

What families are told about the breakSection titled What%20families%20are%20told%20about%20the%20break

Families reading PrimeCarers' live-in pages are told that a live-in carer usually takes about 2 hours to themselves each day, often in the afternoon, alongside 8 to 10 hours of hands-on care. Those pages also tell families that this is what carers and families commonly agree, not a legal entitlement, and that the timing is the carer's to set. You can read what families are told about the live-in carer's daily break, what families are told about how many hours a live-in carer works and what families are told live-in carers are entitled to.

It helps to know what a family has read before you meet them. A family expecting about 2 hours a day will usually have thought about who sits with their relative while you are out. A family who has not thought about it at all needs the conversation before you arrive, not in the second week.

Settling the break before you startSection titled Settling%20the%20break%20before%20you%20start

The things worth agreeing are when the break usually falls, whether you leave the house for it, who is with your client while you are off duty, and what counts as urgent enough to interrupt you. If your client cannot be left alone, the family needs to arrange somebody to be there. That can be a relative, a volunteer sitting service or an hourly carer, and it is the family's arrangement to make, not something you are expected to give up your break for.

Families are told on PrimeCarers' pages that getting up a couple of times a night, briefly, is part of what a live-in week covers, and that three or more wakings most nights, or wakings that run long, is a waking night and usually needs a second carer. What families are told about live-in care against 24-hour care and what families are told about whether live-in carers stay overnight set that out from their side.

The reason it matters is tiredness. The Health and Safety Executive's guidance on fatigue says that fatigue leads to slower reactions, memory lapses and underestimation of risk, and that it can lead to errors and accidents, ill-health and injury. For a carer that means medication, moving and handling, and your own health. A higher weekly rate does not give you back the sleep, so the answer to broken nights is a second pair of hands at night, not a larger payment for going without.

1. 1

   Keep a short note of the nights

   First week

   Write down when you were woken, why and for how long. A week of notes is easier for a family to act on than a general sense that nights are bad.
2. 2

   Raise it with the family early

   As soon as it is a pattern

   Tell them what the nights have been like and that this is more than a live-in placement is set up for. Do it while you are still coping, rather than once you are exhausted.
3. 3

   Ask about a night carer as well

   The fix

   A night carer in the house alongside you means you can sleep. Families can arrange overnight care as a separate booking, and it is their decision and their cost.
4. 4

   Look again after any change

   Ongoing

   A fall, an infection, a hospital stay or a change in medication can change the nights within days. Agree that either of you can ask to review the arrangement at any time.
5. 5

   Give notice if nothing changes

   Last resort

   If the nights stay the same and the family cannot arrange cover, you can end the placement with notice under the contract. That is 7 days once you have worked 168 hours.

Dementia and Parkinson's are the conditions where nights most often change. If that is the placement you are in, managing clients with dementia and managing clients with Parkinson's cover what tends to happen at night and what helps.

How a substitute works under the contractSection titled How%20a%20substitute%20works%20under%20the%20contract

The contract gives you the right to send another suitably qualified carer in your place, at your own discretion, subject only to reasonable objections from the client. You are responsible for arranging, paying and managing the substitute. A reasonable objection can include concerns about the substitute's qualifications, their safety, their legal right to work, or whether they can meet the care needs. You should share only what the substitute needs to know for the care to continue safely.

The money side is yours to plan. Whatever you agree to pay a substitute comes out of what the placement brings in for those days. At the typical live-in rate of £1,120 a week, with our fee included, one day of the placement leaves you £140 after our 12.5% commission, before tax. Work out what you would pay somebody for a day against that figure before you offer it. Live-in carer pay sets out what reaches you per day, week and month of a rotation.

Rotations and the weeks offSection titled Rotations%20and%20the%20weeks%20off

A rotation is something you agree with a client, not a rule. Some families want the same carer for two weeks at a time and a second carer for the next two, others want longer stretches. Before you accept a placement, ask whether the family already has a second carer for the weeks you are away. A family with no plan for your time off can end up asking you to stay on, and it is easier to say no to that when the dates were agreed at the start.

Days off are unpaid, and so is any holiday. As a self-employed carer nobody pays you for time off, so the weeks you work have to cover the weeks you do not. Holiday pay, sick pay and pensions when you are self-employed covers how to plan for that.

Start by talking. The Breaks clause says that if suitable times for rest are proving difficult, you and the client may discuss changes to the schedule. Say what is happening, what you need, and what would fix it, and put what you agree in writing. The contract says communications between you are made in writing, by email, WhatsApp or the messages on the PrimeCarers platform, so a message there is the record.

If talking does not fix it, the contract sets out what happens next.

Notice matters to the family as well as to you. A carer who leaves without warning can leave a vulnerable person with nobody, and the family may have to find replacement care in a hurry and at their own cost. Why reliable care matters covers why giving notice protects your name with families as well as theirs.

If the home is unsafeSection titled If%20the%20home%20is%20unsafe

The contract expects the client to give you a safe working environment and to tell you about known risks, such as mobility, cognitive impairment, challenging behaviour or infections, and to update you when things change. It also says you decide whether the environment is safe for you to work in, and may stop work if you reasonably believe it is not. If you feel at risk, leave, go somewhere safe, and then tell the family in writing.

If you are worried about your client's safety rather than your own, the contract says safeguarding concerns are raised between you and the client or with the statutory bodies, which in practice means the council's adult social care team, or 999 if somebody is in immediate danger. What families are told about safeguarding adults and how to report explains the routes.

Where you and a family disagree about what is owed, you can ask PrimeCarers to help the two of you talk it through. The contract is between you and the client, and the outcome is for the two of you to agree. If you want to take on live-in work on these terms, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers, set your weekly rate and choose which placements to accept, or see the carer jobs open near you first.