Deposits, cancellation and notice when you hire a private carer

Families often arrive at this question with a care home in mind, which is a different arrangement with different money attached to it. The Competition and Markets Authority, which enforces consumer law, publishes advice for care home residents and their families covering upfront payments, deposits and notice, because a residential contract can involve all three. Care at home works differently: you agree visits with a self-employed carer and pay for the ones that happen.

Because nothing is payable until a visit has been worked, there is no cost to speaking to three or four carers before you pick one, and no penalty for changing your mind after a phone call. The cost of care hub sets out what the visits come to once you start, and what is in the hourly rate explains where the money in an hour goes.

Payment is taken by card through PrimeCarers after care has happened, against the visits you and the carer booked and confirmed. Nobody hands cash to a carer in the house. Invoices are compiled automatically from what the two of you entered, so the one job worth doing each week is checking that the invoice matches the visits that took place. You and the carer are jointly responsible for that under the contract, and a query raised in the same week is easier to settle than one raised a month later.

Two things sit outside the rate, and both are optional. A live-in carer eats with the household, so their food goes on the weekly shop rather than the bill. Families who want more help running the arrangement can add a managed service, which adds a percentage to the rate. The pricing page has the full breakdown, and paying for care at home and managing expenses covers the week-to-week side of it.

England and Wales have eight bank holidays in a normal year, so if your relative has daily visits it is worth knowing which weeks cost more before the invoice arrives. A Saturday or a Sunday carries no uplift.

Travel is the item families most often assume is included. Under the contract it is not chargeable unless you and the carer have expressly agreed it in advance, in writing, with the rate and the circumstances set down. Where a family does agree to pay for it, usually because the carer drives their relative to appointments in their own car, HMRC publishes an approved mileage rate of 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, which is the usual reference point. Other out-of-pocket costs are repaid against receipts where you agreed the arrangement beforehand, and carer shopping cards compared sets out the safer ways to hand over money for the shop.

There are exceptions, and the contract names them rather than leaving them to judgement.

Beyond those, a carer may choose to waive part or all of a cancellation fee, and that is their decision rather than something PrimeCarers can arrange on your behalf. PrimeCarers charges nothing of its own when a visit is cancelled and takes no view on whether a cancellation was fair. It can pass messages between you, and the contract sets out discussion and then mediation if something cannot be settled.

Whatever the reason, tell the carer as soon as you know, in writing. The contract asks you to do this, and a carer who has two days of warning can usually fill the gap where one who finds out on the doorstep cannot. If cancelled and late visits are the immediate worry, cancelled and late visits and what you are charged covers the everyday version of this question, including what happens when the carer is the one who has to call off.

Notice applies only to visits that have already been agreed. Neither side is obliged to offer or accept work beyond that, so giving notice does not mean buying out weeks of care that were never booked. It does mean that the visits already in the diary inside the notice period stand, and they are payable on the same terms as any other booked visit.

If the carer leaves without giving the notice they owe, and it is not because of illness or a serious emergency, the contract says they are not paid for the future visits inside that period, since those visits were not worked. It also lets you recover reasonable and foreseeable costs of putting replacement care in place, such as paying an equivalent rate for cover at short notice.

The two of you can agree a different notice period, but only in writing and only where nobody is under pressure to accept it. Notice periods covers the mechanics of giving and receiving notice, and ending live-in care covers what seven days means when somebody is living in your relative's home.

1. 1

   Put the notice in writing

   Today

   A message through the platform, an email or a WhatsApp all count under the contract. Say clearly which date you are treating as the last one, so there is no argument later about when the period started.
2. 2

   Write down what is still booked

   10 minutes

   List the visits that fall inside the notice period. Those stand, and they are payable. Knowing the figure now means the final invoice is not a surprise, and it tells you how many days you have to fill.
3. 3

   Look at who else is available nearby

   Free

   Compare carers, their rates and their reviews before you commit to anything, and message as many of them as you want to. Carers set out their own availability, so you can see who could start in the week you need.
4. 4

   Agree the new arrangement before the old one ends

   This week

   Where the dates allow it, book the first visits with the new carer for the day after the notice runs out. Send them the care plan and the routine you already have, so your relative is not explaining it all again.

When you are ready for that third step, search for carers near you and compare their rates by postcode. Every carer on the site has had an identity check, a right to work check and an enhanced DBS on the Update Service, and has been interviewed online, and they are insured while they work. What they are qualified and trained to do is for you to ask them about directly. If it is money rather than the carer that has prompted the change, the care cost calculator gives you a local figure before you start.