What 24-hour care at home costs, and the three ways to build it

The phrase says that somebody is there for every hour of the day and night. It does not say whether that person is awake, or asleep upstairs and ready to get up, and it does not say whether it is one person or three. Those are the details that move the cost from about £1,120 a week to about £2,758.

If you are still working out which of these your relative needs, how live-in care works explains the day-to-day arrangement, and the difference between a waking night and a sleeping night explains the choice that moves the price most.

The first build is the simplest and the cheapest. One carer who is in the house all week learns how your relative likes their tea, notices when they are quieter than usual, and is a familiar face at three in the morning rather than a stranger. It works while the nights are settled. A live-in carer needs a proper night's sleep and time off during the day, and the standard PrimeCarers contract leaves the timing of those rest periods to the carer to manage, with both of you agreeing suitable times between you. What a live-in carer is entitled to sets out what that looks like in a normal week.

The second build keeps that one familiar carer for the day and puts somebody awake beside your relative for the night. It is the answer when the nights have stopped being quiet: repeated waking, wandering, turning every few hours, or pain relief that has to be given on time. What a night carer costs, sleeping or waking goes through the night on its own in more detail.

The third build is for a house with no spare room, for a person who needs two carers at a time to be moved safely, or for a family who wants somebody awake at every hour without a live-in arrangement. It buys the most cover, it costs the most, and it means more carers coming and going through the week.

Two points about these figures matter when you set a budget. The first is that four weeks is not a month. There are 52 weeks in a year, so a month is closer to four and a third weeks, and budgeting on four will leave you short by roughly a month of care over the course of a year. The second is that the gap between the first row and the third is almost entirely the cost of keeping somebody awake all night.

For comparison, a live-in care agency charges from £1,400 a week for the first build, and you rarely choose the carer or get told in advance when they are being swapped. The cost of live-in care breaks the weekly figure down by level of need, and how our pricing works sets out what is inside the rate you see on a carer's profile.

If the ticks fall mostly in the first item of each group, one live-in carer is very likely enough, and you can add nights later if things change. If your relative has dementia and the nights are the problem, our dementia care guide and the page on what sundowning is and what settles it explain what is happening after dark, because a change to the evening routine sometimes does more than an extra carer would.

The bars leave two things out. A care home fee covers the room, the heating, the food and the laundry, so when your relative stays at home those bills stay yours, and they belong in the comparison before you call the first bar cheaper. On the other side, care at home does not require the house to be sold or rented out, the routines stay as they are, and a pet can stay. Is live-in care cheaper than a care home? works the comparison through in full.

The comparison changes again for a couple. One live-in carer looking after two people costs about £1,350 a week on PrimeCarers, against roughly £2,320 a week for two residential places, and in a care home the two of them may well be living apart. Live-in care for couples covers how one carer manages two people and the point at which that stops being realistic.

1. 1

   Claim Attendance Allowance

   Not means-tested

   Paid to people over State Pension age who need help with personal care or supervision. There are two weekly rates, £76.70 and £114.60 in 2026/27, and the higher rate is for people who need help during the night as well as the day. Savings and income make no difference. It is cash you can spend on a carer.
2. 2

   Ask for an NHS Continuing Healthcare checklist

   Not means-tested

   Where the main need is a health need rather than help with daily living, the NHS can fund the whole package, including care at home. Ask the GP, the district nurse or the hospital discharge team to complete a checklist. If it passes, a full assessment follows and a decision should come within 28 days.
3. 3

   Ask the council for a care needs assessment

   Free, and anyone can ask

   A social worker looks at what your relative can and cannot do and writes down the care they need. It is free whatever their savings. A financial assessment follows it: in England the upper capital limit is £23,250, below £14,250 savings are effectively ignored, and the value of the home is disregarded while your relative still lives in it.
4. 4

   If the council will contribute, ask for a direct payment

   The step families miss

   A direct payment is the council’s contribution paid to you as money rather than as a care package they arrange. It is what lets you choose the carer yourself and keep the same one, instead of taking whichever provider the council has a contract with.

Attendance Allowance is the quickest of the four and the one most worth doing today, because it is not means-tested and it is not tied to any particular arrangement. Describe your relative's worst days on the form rather than their best; the gov.uk guidance on what you will get sets out the two rates, and Age UK's factsheet on paying for care and support at home explains the financial assessment in full. NHS continuing healthcare is worth pursuing for anyone whose needs are complex, unpredictable and intense, and refusals can be challenged. Our own guide to the different types of care funding puts the routes in one place.

If you decide to arrange and pay for a carer yourselves, it is worth knowing what you are taking on. Hiring somebody directly, off any platform, can make you their employer, with everything that comes with becoming an employer: payroll, pension duties and employer's liability insurance. Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed and insured while they work, and the CQC guidance on the scope of registration explains why an introductory service with no ongoing role in the care itself is not a registered care provider. What that means in practice is that you choose the carer and you hold the relationship with them, rather than a company deciding who turns up.