How much does domiciliary care cost in the UK?

If the word itself is new to you, what domiciliary care is and what it covers explains it first. In short, a carer visits at agreed times to help with washing, dressing, meals, medication prompts and getting about, and then leaves. It is the same service people call home care or hourly care.

The gap between the first two rows comes from what sits around the carer. An agency is registered with the Care Quality Commission, employs its carers, plans the rota, sends cover when someone is off sick and runs a complaints procedure, and its hourly price pays for all of that as well as the visit. With a self-employed carer you choose the person, agree the visits with them directly and pay a lower rate, and in return you take on more of the organising yourself, including what happens when they are ill or on holiday. PrimeCarers' optional Managed service, at an extra 5%, adds help with scheduling and holiday cover for families who want it.

It is worth being clear about what PrimeCarers is. We are an introductory service, not a care agency or a care provider, and we hold no CQC registration; the carer you choose works for you. Before a carer's profile appears, we check their identity and right to work, check that they have an enhanced DBS certificate (or PVG in Scotland, or Access NI in Northern Ireland) issued within the last 2 years, and interview them online. Carers are insured while they work. We do not check qualifications, training or references, so ask the carer about their skills and training before the first visit. How home care is regulated explains why an agency and a directly engaged carer are treated differently in law.

The figures on this page stay at the level of a week. For the detail on hourly rates, including what carers near you are advertising today and how the rate breaks down, read the hourly cost of care at home and what is in the hourly rate.

Two things stand out. The first is that the gap between the two bars widens as the hours go up. At one visit a day the difference is a few tens of pounds a week; at four visits a day it can be several hundred. The second is where the lines sit. Four agency visits a day comes close to the cost of a live-in carer, who is in the house day and night, and that is the point at which it makes sense to compare the two properly.

The monthly figure uses 52 weeks divided by 12, which is why it is a little more than four times the weekly one. If you are budgeting for a year, multiply the weekly figure by 52. If you are not sure how many visits your relative needs, how many visits a week your parent needs builds the week up from the tasks, and the hourly cost guide has a calculator for your own hours.

The visit length is the one to settle first. A half-hour call can look cheaper on paper, but a morning wash, dressing, breakfast and tablets rarely fit into it, and a rushed carer has no time to notice that something has changed. Why 15 and 30 minute calls fail sets out what fits into each length of visit. For uplifts, weekend, evening and bank holiday rates goes into more detail, and deposits, cancellation and notice covers how payment works. There is no deposit and no joining fee on PrimeCarers, and you pay by card through the platform after each visit has happened.

1. 1

   Ask for a care needs assessment

   Free for anyone

   Ring adult social care at your relative's council and ask for a needs assessment. It is free whatever their income or savings, and it decides whether they have needs the council must meet. You can pay for care privately while you wait.
2. 2

   Reablement after a hospital stay is free

   Up to 6 weeks

   If your relative is offered reablement or intermediate care, often after a hospital stay, the council must provide it free of charge for up to 6 weeks. Care that carries on after that is means-tested in the usual way.
3. 3

   The financial assessment

   The means test

   If your relative has savings and other capital above £23,250, they pay the full cost. Between £14,250 and £23,250, the council counts £1 a week of income for every £250 in between. Below £14,250, savings are not counted. For care at home, the home they live in is never counted.
4. 4

   Income they keep

   £241.45 a week

   After charges, the council must leave a single person over Pension Credit age with at least £241.45 a week, called the minimum income guarantee, so they can pay for food, bills and rent. Extra costs that come from a disability should also be allowed for.
5. 5

   Choose how the help arrives

   Council care or a direct payment

   The council can arrange the care through an agency it contracts with, or pay its share to your relative as a direct payment so the family chooses the carer. A direct payment can pay an agency or a self-employed carer.

Here is how the middle band works in practice. If your father has £18,250 in savings, that is £4,000 above the lower limit, so the council treats him as able to put £16 a week towards his care from his savings, on top of what it works out from his income. The full rules are in council funding for care, and direct payments explains how to ask for one and what it can be spent on.

A person with savings above the limit can still ask the council to arrange care at home for them, and it must do so if they have eligible needs. They pay the full cost, and the council may add an arrangement fee to cover its own costs of setting the care up. Two other sources of money are separate from the means test. Attendance Allowance is a benefit for people over State Pension age who have needed help with personal care or supervision for at least six months, and it is not means-tested, so savings do not affect it: Attendance Allowance explains how to claim. And if your relative's needs are mainly health needs, the NHS may pay for all of their care through NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is not means-tested either. The funding guide puts all of the routes in order.

At around 35 hours a week, visits on PrimeCarers cost about the same as a live-in carer, and a live-in carer is there between the visits as well. Agency visits reach that point sooner. Live-in care needs a spare room for the carer and is a bigger change for the household, so when live-in care becomes cheaper than hourly visits and the cost of live-in care are worth reading before you decide.

A care home is the right answer for some people, and price is only one part of that decision. One difference in the money is worth knowing early: for care at home the council does not count the value of the house in the means test, but for a permanent care home place it usually does. The cost of care by type sets every kind of care side by side, and the care cost calculator shows what each costs where your relative lives.