Companionship with light housekeeping

None of these lines is a rule PrimeCarers sets. The first two are the ordinary shape of care work in England, and the government uses the same split: when a council assesses somebody, the eligibility regulations list maintaining personal hygiene, managing toilet needs and being appropriately clothed as separate outcomes from maintaining a habitable home environment, and both are separate again from developing and maintaining family and other personal relationships. Company, personal care and the state of the house are three different needs, and they were three different needs before anybody booked a carer.

The third line is different. A carer on PrimeCarers is self-employed and holds their own agreement with your relative, so the tasks are settled between the two of them rather than assigned by a manager.

Personal care has a settled meaning. The Care Quality Commission, which regulates care providers in England, defines it as physical help with eating or drinking, toileting, washing or bathing, dressing, oral care, and the care of skin, hair and nails, along with prompting and supervising somebody through those things where they cannot decide to do them on their own. The same regulator is clear that help with shopping, housing support and social support on their own are not personal care.

The money is the smallest part of this. Two other things change, and both are more important.

The first is consent. Being helped onto the toilet by somebody who came for a chat about the garden is not what your mother agreed to, and she may say yes on the day because she is embarrassed rather than because she is willing. What is personal care? sets out what the tasks involve, and personal care at home covers how the visits are arranged. If your relative would rather be helped by a man or a woman in particular, asking for a female or a male carer for intimate care is an ordinary request and it is easier to make at the start.

The second is skill. A carer who has never helped somebody in and out of a bath is being asked to do something they may not be trained for. We check that a carer is who they say they are, that they have the right to work, that they hold an enhanced DBS on the Update Service, and that they have been interviewed online. We do not check qualifications, training or references. What a carer says about their experience is their own account of it on their profile, and those are the questions to put to them directly.

What falls outside is not a companion being unhelpful. The oven, the windows, the skirting boards, a spring clean, the ironing pile, the lawn and the hedge are all jobs about the house rather than about your relative, and they take hours that your relative bought for company. There is also a safety line under some of them. A carer here is self-employed, and the Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to a self-employed person in relation to their own work, so a step ladder for a light bulb, a curtain rail or anything in the loft is work they are within their rights to decline.

The hardest case is two adults living in one house. If your father lives with your mother and only your mother has care needs, the companion is there for your mother. Cooking for both of them because the pan is already on is kind and ordinary. Washing and cleaning up after a fit adult every week is a housekeeper's job. Say whose washing and whose room in week one and nobody has to raise it in week ten. Shopping, cooking, cleaning: what counts as care sorts twenty household jobs into care, domestic help and the ones to agree first.

Travel costs are easy to get wrong. Under the agreement between your relative and the carer, travel is not chargeable unless it has been agreed in advance and in writing, and the agreement has to say the rate and when it applies. Where mileage is agreed it is usually 55p a mile, which is the HMRC approved rate for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026/27. Tickets, parking and entry fees are paid by your relative at cost, and agreed before the day.

Can carers take you out? covers outings in full, including weddings and funerals, and finding a carer who drives covers what to look for on a profile before you book somebody for trips in the car.

1. 1

   Write the list before you message anybody

   15 minutes

   Walk through an ordinary week and write down every job, including the ones that feel too small to mention. The washing, the bed, the bins, the dog, the shop, the GP appointment. A carer would rather read a long list up front than find a new job waiting each week.
2. 2

   Ask two or three carers what they are happy to take on

   Free, and before you book

   Send the same list to each of them. A carer who says no to two things is telling you where they stand, and that is the carer you want. This is also when to ask about their experience and training.
3. 3

   Put the agreed list into the booking

   Before the first visit

   The booking details on PrimeCarers, including the times, the length and any agreed variations, form part of the agreement between your relative and the carer. A job written there is a job agreed, and it is what you both look at when something needs to change.
4. 4

   Change it together when it needs changing

   Any time

   A list agreed in September is not binding in March. Variations confirmed in writing become part of the arrangement, so a new job or a longer visit is a message rather than a doorstep request.

If you are starting from nothing, and what you want is the house kept ticking over and somebody for your mother to talk to, you can search for carers near you and compare their rates before you commit to anything, then agree the tasks in the booking with whoever you choose.

Two other things are worth knowing before you book. Bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the carer's normal rate and Christmas Day at twice it. Either side can end the arrangement on 48 hours' notice for hourly and companionship visits, and if your relative cancels a visit the carer is still paid in full, except where it was unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or a reason the carer agrees to. PrimeCarers charges nothing itself when you cancel a visit, and we do not set the terms between your relative and the carer. How much does a companion carer cost? sets out a week of visits at different patterns.

Nobody in that story behaved badly. It drifts because each step is small and because a family is relieved that somebody is coping. What it costs is the company your relative wanted in the first place, and it puts the carer in a job they never took on.

Where a council funds care there is a duty behind this: under section 27 of the Care Act 2014 a council must keep a care and support plan under review and must review it when someone reasonably asks. A private arrangement carries no such duty, so the review is yours to call. Put a date in the diary every three months, read the list of jobs in the booking, and ask the carer what has changed.

If more of the visit is now washing and dressing than talking, when is personal care needed? helps you work out where your relative has got to, and what a companion visit looks like shows what you are no longer getting. Writing a care plan with your carer covers how to put the new arrangement down on paper.