When a client cancels or goes into hospital: what you are paid and how to cover the gap

The starting point is simple. When a client cancels a visit you had agreed, the contract says they pay the full cost. The exceptions are unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or another reason agreed between you and the client. Where none of those applies, you may still choose to waive part or all of the cancellation fee. The contract says that choice is at your sole discretion, so it is yours to make and nobody else's.

Waiving a fee is sometimes the right thing to do. A family that cancels once because a grandchild is visiting, and books you every week, is a different case from a client who cancels at short notice every fortnight. What you choose to do is part of how you run your own business, and it is worth deciding in advance how you will handle it so you are not making it up on a difficult phone call. The rates you set in the first place matter too: how much to charge as a self-employed carer covers building gaps like these into your rate.

The contract itself is published in full, and it is worth reading the notices clause once. When money reaches you depends on each client's billing, which how carers get paid on PrimeCarers explains, and what carers earn on PrimeCarers shows what reaches you from each kind of booking. The rest of the guides for working carers are on carer resources.

1. 1

   Try to reach the client and their family

   Before you leave

   Ring the client, then the family contact you have. The contract asks the client to make sure you can get in on time, and a quick call often sorts it out.
2. 2

   Note when you arrived and what happened

   At the time

   The time you got there, who you tried to contact and what you were told. Notes written on the day are easier to rely on than memory if there is a disagreement later.
3. 3

   Tell the client in writing

   The same day

   The contract treats email, WhatsApp and the chat on the PrimeCarers platform as writing. A short message saying you came, could not get in and will charge for the visit is enough.
4. 4

   Keep any extra cost to the client down

   A condition of charging

   You may charge the agreed fee only if you take reasonable steps to minimise unnecessary cost to the client, so do not run up extra charges on their account while you wait.

The clause has two conditions, and both matter. You have to have been available and willing to work, which means you turned up, or were ready to, at the agreed time. And the failure has to have arisen solely from the client's or patient's actions or omissions. If you were late, or the visit fell through partly because of something on your side, the clause does not help you.

Where you arrive to find that the client was taken into hospital during the night, the contract does not say how this clause and the hospitalisation exception fit together. Talk to the family, agree what happens to that visit, and confirm it by message.

If you are ever worried for a client who does not answer, their safety comes before the fee. The contract says safeguarding concerns are for the client and carer, or the appropriate statutory bodies, to deal with directly, so ring the family, and ring 999 if you believe somebody is in danger.

For hourly visits, an emergency admission usually means the visits in the diary for that week do not happen, and the exception applies to them. Anything beyond that is for you and the family to agree. Some families ask a carer to keep the diary free so the client can come home to a familiar face, and if you are asked to hold yourself available, you are entitled to agree a payment for doing so, or to say no. A planned operation is not unplanned hospitalisation, so if a family cancels visits for a date they have known about for weeks, those visits are payable in full unless you choose to waive part or all of them. Raising it as soon as they tell you the date saves an awkward conversation later.

A live-in placement is where an admission is felt most, because you are living in the client's home. The family guide on what families are told about live-in care when a parent goes into hospital sets out the same rules from their side, and the choices below are the ones it gives them.

If the family asks you to visit the ward, bring laundry home or sit with the client during the day, that is work they are asking for, and it is paid at whatever you agree with them. It is not part of the live-in week, because the live-in week is not running while the client is in hospital. You also know the client's routine better than anyone on the ward, so offering the family a page on how they take their medication, how they move and what settles them at night is useful, whether or not you go in yourself.

When the client is coming home, ask the family what has changed. Needs after a hospital stay can be heavier than before, and if the care that is coming home is beyond what you are confident to do, the contract says you should not undertake work you feel unqualified to perform and should tell the client so other arrangements can be made. What to agree before a live-in placement covers putting a new arrangement in writing, and live-in carer pay covers what you are owed when a placement ends early.

The sentence that matters most for your income is short. The contract says the notice period applies only to visits already agreed, and that it does not create any obligation for either party to offer or accept future work. Elsewhere it says the agreement imposes no obligation on the client to give you any additional assignments beyond the agreed notice period. So notice protects the visits in the diary. It does not protect next month.

The live-in notice is shorter in the first week, which is worth knowing when you start a new placement. For the first 168 hours, either of you can end it with 48 hours of notice, so the income from a placement you have just started is less settled than it will be later.

Notice runs both ways. If you end an arrangement without giving the notice, except for illness or a serious emergency, you are not paid for the booked visits in the notice period, and the client may recover reasonable replacement care costs. Nothing stops you leaving at once where staying would put you in danger.

There is one situation the contract does not mention at all. If the person you care for dies, there is no clause about it, so what happens to the visits already booked is for you and the family to agree between you.

1. 1

   Talk to the client first, and write down what you agree

   Straight away

   A visit cancelled by phone and never confirmed is easy to disagree about later. Put the dates, the reason and what you agreed in a message.
2. 2

   Raise it with PrimeCarers within 10 working days

   The carer terms

   To use the issue management process, an issue has to be raised within 10 working days of the incident. PrimeCarers can help with communication between you and the client.
3. 3

   Payment may be paused while you sort it out

   Administrative only

   The carer terms let PrimeCarers temporarily suspend payments while a dispute is clarified. Any deduction or refund then follows what you and the client agree.
4. 4

   Mediation before anything else

   The dispute clause

   If discussion does not settle it, the contract says both of you will try non-binding mediation in good faith before arbitration or court.

The contract is plain about PrimeCarers' part in this. It may facilitate communication between the parties but does not determine the outcome, and any waiver of fees is a matter between you and the client. Invoices are compiled from the bookings you and the client enter, and you are jointly responsible for making sure those bookings are accurate before an invoice is issued. So if a cancelled visit is still showing as booked, or a visit you were turned away from is missing, the first step is to put the booking right with the client.

What PrimeCarers does not do is decide who is right. That can feel frustrating when you are owed money, but it follows from the arrangement you chose: you are self-employed, the contract is yours, and the rate, the notice and any waiver are commercial terms between you and your client.

More than one clientSection titled More%20than%20one%20client

A carer with one client loses all of their income when that client goes into hospital. A carer with four clients on similar hours loses about a quarter of it. You are free to arrange your work around other clients and commitments, and the contract says so. Spreading your hours across several families is the most direct protection against a single admission, though it takes time to build and means more travel. Finding private clients covers how carers build a list of regular clients.

If you want to add clients so that one hospital stay does not stop your income, you can register as a carer on PrimeCarers and set your own rate, or see the carer jobs open near you first.

A savings bufferSection titled A%20savings%20buffer

Nobody pays a self-employed carer for a week without work. Moving a fixed share of each payment into a separate account the day it arrives builds a buffer for the weeks a client is on a ward. Holiday pay, sick pay and pensions when self-employed shows how to work out a share for holiday, and the same habit covers a gap between clients.

Universal CreditSection titled Universal%20Credit

If you claim Universal Credit, gov.uk says you report what you earned from self-employment at the end of each monthly assessment period, even if it is nothing. If you are treated as gainfully self-employed, your payment may be worked out from an assumed level of earnings called the minimum income floor, which changes how much a lost client affects it. Self-employment and Universal Credit on gov.uk sets out the rules, and our guide to Universal Credit when you are self-employed covers what happens when a client goes into hospital.