Safeguarding runs both ways: staying safe as a self-employed carer

Most safety advice for carers imagines something dramatic. The risks carers actually describe to our team are quieter: a passport photo requested in a family group chat, an unknown number ringing at two in the morning, a first visit alone in a house nobody you know has ever been inside. Safeguarding is usually explained as something you do for the person you care for, but it runs the other way too, and as a self-employed carer you are often the only person there to do it.

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Safeguarding is not only about the person you care for

Agency work usually comes with someone to ring and a rota that knows where you are. Self-employed carers trade that for choosing their own clients, hours and rates, and get instead a lot of first visits to addresses they have never seen.

Across the calls carers make to us, three situations recur: identity documents requested outside the platform, contact moved off the platform before anything is checked, and the first visit happening alone. None of them sound dramatic. All three are where things go wrong.

Never send your documents to a private contact

One carer told us she was asked, late at night, to post a photograph of her passport into a client’s family group chat, before she had even started. She refused, and offered to show it in person instead.

I’m not comfortable sending my passport to the group chat.

She was right. The request told her something about the placement before day one: the person needing care was not the problem.

Another carer described the same boundary crossed the other way. At an interview arranged privately, away from any platform, she was pressed into handing her passport and DBS certificate straight to the interviewer. She was strung along for months with promises of a job that never appeared, and her documents were out there the whole time.

I wouldn’t do that anymore. Definitely not again. I’m not giving anyone my documents.

The rule that follows is simple, and worth holding to even when it feels rude. Clients see your profile and your bio. They do not need copies of your passport, DBS certificate or share code, and no genuine client loses interest because you offered to show them in person. If someone asks you to pay for a new background check, to email documents to a personal address, or to move to a private number, stop and call us. Those approaches are set out in the scams that target carers, and what you genuinely need to hold is covered in the paperwork wall, our guide to self-employed carer documents and our page on the DBS update service.

Insurance, and what is actually checked

Two things are worth being precise about, because carers ask about both. PrimeCarers checks carers’ identity, right to work and DBS documents, and carers complete our onboarding. Work booked through PrimeCarers is covered by PrimeCarers’ insurance; work arranged outside the platform is not, so you need your own public liability cover for that. Car insurance is separate again: business use, and hire and reward only if you charge for mileage.

PrimeCarers is an introductory platform and does not provide, manage, supervise or clinically assess care. Clients remain responsible for checking carer documentation, interviewing carers, checking suitability for their specific needs, and agreeing the scope of care directly with the carer.

Before a first visit, tell someone where you are going

This is the habit carers mention most, and it costs nothing. Tell one person you trust the address, the time you are going in and the time you expect to come out, then message them when you leave. If there is nobody to tell, tell us.

• Keep contact on the platform until you have met. It is the only record either of you has if something needs looking at later.
• Park where you can leave easily, and notice the way out when you arrive.
• Keep your phone charged and on you, not in a bag in the hall.
• Agree in writing what the visit involves, so nothing is sprung on you.

The delay before phone numbers are exchanged irritates some people, but it is deliberate. One carer rang us after his phone went at two in the morning, from a number connected to a prospective client whose account had not yet been verified. He was right to flag it: no numbers should have been exchanged at that stage. As our team told him, someone who does not know you calling at two o’clock in the morning is quite concerning. We verified that client ourselves before allowing contact.

Trust the change in tone, and act on it early

The night before her first visit to a new client, a carer received texts that grew steadily more personal: remarks about her appearance, an offer to take care of her and drive her home, then a message deleted and explained away. No single item on that list is a crime. Together, they changed the visit she was about to walk into alone.

Sometimes your intuition sort of tells you, doesn’t it?

She did not want to get anyone into trouble, which is the sentence we hear most often just before a carer talks herself out of acting. She cancelled anyway, and asked us to follow it up for her.

I don’t want to put myself in a very awkward situation.

You are not accusing anybody by withdrawing from a booking. You do not have to be certain, and you are not required to produce evidence. Handing it to us also means you never have to have the awkward exchange yourself.

And once you are inside

A carer arrived at a new client’s home about forty five minutes late, having texted ahead. She was met by a furious relative who would not let the subject drop. She stayed a few minutes, said she was leaving, and went.

Her face was just like thunder. I felt really uncomfortable, and I said, I’m going to go now.

She worried she had overreacted. She had not. We already had the household’s version by email, and we wanted hers because of what it meant for whoever went next. As one of our team put it, if a household is difficult and potentially unsafe in some way, we need to know, so that other carers are not sent there.

If you leave a visit early, write down what happened the same day: times, what was said, what you did. It protects you if the account is later disputed, the subject of blamed: what to do when a household turns on you. There is no shame in ending a placement that does not feel safe, which is covered in leaving well.

Live-in work asks a different question

Hourly visits end. Live-in work does not, and that changes what safe means. One carer, warm about the young client she supports now, described an earlier live-in placement in flat, short sentences.

I ended up sleeping with my door barricaded. It was horrendous.

She will not take live-in work again. Another live-in carer told us she went close to three weeks without proper sleep after her client came home from hospital needing attention through the night. Neither situation was created by a bad person. Both were created by arrangements nobody checked before the carer moved in. Before you accept a live-in role, get answers in writing:

• Do you have your own room, with a door that locks?
• Who else lives at the property, or regularly stays there?
• What happens at night, how often, and who covers if it becomes constant?
• What are your daily break and weekly cover arrangements, and who provides them?
• How do you get home if the placement ends suddenly?

A reasonable household will answer all of those. Our page on what live-in carers are entitled to is worth having open while you ask. If the night waking turns out heavier than described, say so in the first week rather than absorbing it. Three weeks of broken sleep is not a test of your commitment.

When you are the only person there

Sometimes the risk is not a person at all. A carer covering for a colleague rang us over a bank holiday weekend, close to tears. The bedbound woman she was looking after had refused food, drink and personal care for two days and was telling her to get out. The regular carer was abroad, and the family member was not answering calls or texts.

She said, I don’t want you here. Get out of my house.

What made that weekend hard was not the refusal, common enough in care. It was being the only person holding it. If you are ever there:

• Call us early rather than late, even out of hours, even if you are not certain it is serious enough.
• Days of refused food, drink and personal care are a medical matter: raise what you have observed with the GP surgery or the out-of-hours service, and call 999 if you believe someone is at immediate risk.
• Do not decide alone whether to stay or go when someone is unwell. Write down what you have seen, share it with the family in writing, and ask for that decision to be made with you.

What happens when you report something

Carers hesitate to report because they expect to be cross-examined. The most useful thing we can tell you is that we act on the carer’s account.

When one carer reported that a man had approached her in a way that seemed to have little to do with any care need, our founder rang the next carer he had contacted, to pass the warning on. The advice was not to confront him, but to step back quietly.

If you do, I’d ask you to be discreet about it. Quietly let him know that you’re no longer available.

We followed up with the account directly and restricted access while we did. Neither carer had to argue her case, or be the one who said why. That is the shape of a good outcome: you tell us, you disengage without a scene, and the checking happens somewhere you do not have to stand.

Report it even when you have handled it yourself, and when you are not sure. The message that seems minor to you is often the one that keeps another carer out of the same house.

What to do next

• Set your documents rule today. Show identity documents in person, never as a photograph to a private contact or a personal email address.
• Tell one person before every first visit: address, time in, expected time out, and a message when you are safely out.
• Write it down the same day. After any visit that unsettles you, note the times and what was said. Our risk assessment guidance and downloadable template is a good place to start.
• Report it, then let us carry it. Call your account manager, or the office if they are away. You do not need proof to raise a concern.

Related reading

• The scams that target carers, and the clients who spot them first
• Blamed: what to do when a household turns on you
• Leaving well: how and when to walk away from a placement
• Do I need insurance to be a self-employed carer?