Trial stays in a care home, and coming home again

A respite stay is the gentlest of these, because nobody has to call it a trial. Your relative goes for a week or a fortnight while the family carer rests, and afterwards everyone knows more about the home than a visit could show. Respite at home or in a care home compares the two kinds of break, and how to fund respite covers what the council may pay towards it.

If the stay is meant to test whether a move should be permanent, say so to the home and to the council at the start. Homes and councils use different words for the same arrangement, and the word that ends up on paper matters, as the next section shows. If a move is already being planned, moving a parent into a care home covers the first weeks, and choosing a care home covers the shortlist, the visits and the CQC report.

The house is where the difference matters most. While a stay is temporary, the value of your relative's home is left out of the means test, provided they intend to go back to it and it is still available to them. The statutory guidance also says the council should leave aside the money needed to keep the home in a fit state for their return. Once a stay is recorded as permanent, the house is disregarded for the first 12 weeks and then counted, unless certain other relatives or a husband, wife or partner still live there.

That is why the wording matters. The statutory guidance says a decision to treat somebody as a temporary resident must be agreed with them, or with the person representing them, and written into the care plan. Ask the social worker to confirm in writing which kind of stay it is, and keep the letter. If the stay later becomes permanent, it is only charged as permanent from the date the care plan is changed and agreed.

Benefits change too. Attendance Allowance is not usually paid to somebody living in a care home whose care the council pays for, and the statutory guidance notes that it stops after 4 weeks of council support. If your relative pays the home's fees in full, they can keep claiming it. Tell the Department for Work and Pensions about the stay either way, and see Attendance Allowance for how it works. Local authority funding explains the means test and the capital limits of £14,250 and £23,250.

Government guidance on consumer rights in a care home says a home should give you information about any trial period it offers, and about the circumstances in which a resident could be asked to leave, early enough for you to consider it before you commit. It also says a home should give a resident at least 28 days' written notice if it asks them to leave. Ask for the contract at the first visit, and read it at home rather than in the manager's office.

Keep the house ready as well. Leave the heating on a low setting in cold weather, keep the post collected, and read the home insurance policy for what it says about a house left empty, then tell the insurer about the stay.

Ask your relative in a calm moment and in their own words: what they like, what they miss, and whether they could live there. Write the answers down with the date, because they change, and a record of several conversations is fairer to them than the one you remember best. If they are living with dementia, notice what they seem to feel as well as what they say, and ask staff what the evenings are like, since those are hours a visiting family may not see. When someone with dementia refuses care covers the conversations that are hardest to have.

Where the council arranged the stay, the statutory guidance says a light-touch review of a new care plan should be considered six to eight weeks after it is agreed. Ask for one before the trial ends, whatever its length, so the decision is made with the home, the social worker and your relative in the same room.

Capacity is judged decision by decision, and at the time the decision is made. Someone with dementia may be able to decide where they live on a good morning, and the law says all practicable steps must be taken to help them decide before anyone concludes that they cannot. Mental capacity and how it is assessed explains the test, and can an elderly person be forced into care sets out the narrow situations where someone can be moved against their wishes.

A best interests decision is not a family vote. The people close to your relative must be consulted, and their views weighed, but the decision rests with the person making it, who may be a social worker, a doctor or an attorney. If brothers and sisters see it differently, when siblings disagree about a parent's care covers how to keep that from stalling everything.

1. 1

   Ask the council for a needs assessment

   Before the notice is given

   The council must assess anyone who appears to need care and support, whatever their savings. The assessment sets out what care at home would need to cover, and whether the council will contribute.
2. 2

   Check the house is ready for them

   A week or two before

   Heating, hot water, a working fridge and a clear route from the bed to the toilet. Think about which room they will sleep in if the stairs have become harder.
3. 3

   Get equipment in place

   Before the first night

   An occupational therapist from the council can look at the house. Equipment and minor adaptations the assessment says they need, costing under £1,000 each, are free from the council.
4. 4

   Arrange the care and meet the carer

   Before the notice ends

   Decide between visits and a live-in carer from the assessment, then talk to carers and agree terms before the home's notice runs out, so there is no gap.
5. 5

   Give the home notice in writing

   As the contract says

   Give the notice set out in the home's contract, and confirm the leaving date, the return of any deposit and the final invoice.
6. 6

   Review after the first fortnight

   Once they are home

   The first weeks show whether the hours are right. Adjust them with the carer, and ask the council to review if needs have changed.

The care needs assessment guide explains how to ask for one and what happens at it, and the right equipment to aid the elderly covers rails, frames and bed equipment. Plan the day of the move as well: who collects them, who is at the house, and what is in the fridge.

If the care at home will be visits, hourly care covers how a week is built. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, against £28 to £35 an hour through an agency. If your relative needs somebody in the house through the day and night, live-in care runs from £1,050 a week on PrimeCarers, typically £1,120, with our fee included. For comparison, a residential care home place averages around £1,160 a week, which is not our price. Before you give notice at the home, you can search for carers near you and compare their rates, and message the ones who look right.