The short answer
- Start with whoever arranged the careIf a council or the NHS commissioned the package, the duty to meet the need sits with them rather than with the agency. If you arranged it yourselves, nobody is obliged to replace it.
- A council assessment is free and anyone can askIt does not depend on savings. A council can also meet needs it judges urgent before it has assessed or means-tested anybody.
- Tonight is a separate problem from next monthCover the next few days with whatever works, then build the steady arrangement during the week that follows.
- Booking a carer directly costs £18 to £25 an hourThat is what carers on PrimeCarers charge with our fee included. A home care agency charges £28 to £35 for the same visit.
PrimeCarers is an introductory service rather than a care agency. Carers here are self-employed, set their own rates, and you agree the visits and the price with them directly.
The first few hours
What to do first, in this order
None of these takes long, and the order matters. It avoids two things that go wrong early: agreeing to something on the phone with nothing written down, and holding off on the search for cover until somebody official rings back.
- 1
Get the cancellation in writing
10 minutesEmail or text the agency and ask them to confirm what has been cancelled, from when, and why. Ask what notice your contract with them requires, and what happens to anything already paid for. You will want this for the council, for any complaint later, and as a record of when the care stopped. - 2
Ring whoever arranged and pays for the care
TodayThat is the council's adult social care team, the direct payments team, or the NHS continuing healthcare team, depending on which route in the next section is yours. For evenings and weekends, look on your council's website for its out-of-hours emergency duty team. - 3
Write down what cannot be missed
Tonight and tomorrowList the visits in the order they matter. Medication at the right time, help to the toilet, getting in and out of bed safely, and food and drink sit above housework and shopping. It is easier to ask a relative or a new carer to cover three named things than a whole rota. - 4
Start looking for cover while you wait
Same dayDo not hold the search until the council rings back. If cover arrives from both directions you can stand one of them down, which is a much smaller problem than a morning with nobody there.
Who has to help
Who is responsible depends on who arranged the care
This is the part that decides what happens next, and it is worth being certain about before you make any calls. The agency has to explain itself, but the duty to see that the need is met sits with whoever commissioned and pays for the package.
The council arranged the care
A social worker set the package up and the council pays the agency. You may pay a weekly contribution towards it.
- Ring first
- Adult social care at the council, and its emergency duty team outside office hours.
- What they are there to do
- The duty to meet assessed eligible needs sits with the council under the Care Act 2014, not with the agency. Ask them to commission cover and to say when it starts.
- What you pay
- The contribution you already pay, unless the care plan itself changes.
The council pays, and you buy the care
The money comes to you or to a managed account as a direct payment, and you chose the agency yourself.
- Ring first
- Your direct payments team or the social worker named on the care plan.
- What they are there to do
- They should confirm you can spend the same budget with a different provider or with an individual carer, and tell you what they need in writing before you switch.
- What you pay
- Within the same personal budget. Ask whether the rate you have been given stretches to the replacement.
The NHS pays for the care
The package came through NHS continuing healthcare, a funded nursing package, or a personal health budget.
- Ring first
- The continuing healthcare team at your integrated care board, and the case manager named on your paperwork.
- What they are there to do
- The commissioning team holds the contract with the agency and is the body that has to put another provider in place.
- What you pay
- Nothing, where the NHS funds the care in full.
You pay for it yourselves
You or your relative pay the agency directly, with no council or NHS money involved.
- Ring first
- Nobody is obliged to replace the package, so start arranging cover yourself today.
- What they are there to do
- A council needs assessment is still free and anyone can ask for one, and a council may meet needs it judges urgent before it has assessed or means-tested anybody.
- What you pay
- A carer booked directly charges £18 to £25 an hour on PrimeCarers, our fee included. Agencies charge £28 to £35.
Rates are what carers advertise on PrimeCarers with our fee included, and what home care agencies charge for the same visit. Short-term live-in cover starts at £1,050 a week.
If a council put the package in place after an assessment, the Care Act 2014 puts the duty to meet those eligible needs on the council itself. Cancellation by one provider does not move that duty, so the conversation is about when alternative cover starts rather than whether the council will arrange any. Where a situation is urgent, section 19(3) of the Care Act lets a council meet needs that appear to it to be urgent before it has carried out a needs assessment or a financial assessment, which is the clause to mention if you are told there is a waiting list.
If you pay for everything yourselves, a needs assessment is still worth asking for today, because it is free, anyone can ask for one, and it does not depend on income or savings. It will not produce a carer this evening. What it does is open the door to help with paying, and how to get local authority funding for care at home explains what the council looks at.
Covering the gap
What cover for tonight and this week can look like
Very little of this has to be permanent. The aim for the next few days is that the things on your list happen, with people you have spoken to, and that nobody is alone when they are not safe.
Family, neighbours and friends, for a few days
Tonight
Reablement, if this follows a hospital stay
Free for up to six weeks
The free six weeks comes from the charging regulations made under the Care Act, which put intermediate care and reablement for the first six weeks, and minor aids and adaptations costing £1,000 or less, outside what a council may charge for. Ask about it by name, because it is not always offered. Hourly care after a hospital stay covers how a short-term package and reablement fit together.
What it costs
What replacing the hours costs
It is easy to assume that a replacement costs more because it is arranged at short notice. That is not how the rates work. What changes the price is who you buy the hours from: an organisation holding a rota, or the carer who turns up.
| What you pay | Who sets the rate | What you agree, and with whom | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Another home care agency | £28 to £35 an hour | The agency | A contract with the agency. It decides which of its carers comes, and that can change from visit to visit. |
| A carer booked through PrimeCarers | £18 to £25 an hour, our fee included | The carer | The visits, the rate and the notice are agreed between you and the carer. You choose who comes. |
| Overnight cover | £130 to £145 a sleeping night | The carer | A sleeping night or a waking night, agreed with the carer before the first shift. |
| Short-term live-in cover | From £1,050 a week | The carer | A weekly rate for a carer staying in the house, with a spare room and the breaks agreed between you. |
Another home care agency
- What you pay
- £28 to £35 an hour
- Who sets the rate
- The agency
- What you agree, and with whom
- A contract with the agency. It decides which of its carers comes, and that can change from visit to visit.
A carer booked through PrimeCarers
- What you pay
- £18 to £25 an hour, our fee included
- Who sets the rate
- The carer
- What you agree, and with whom
- The visits, the rate and the notice are agreed between you and the carer. You choose who comes.
Overnight cover
- What you pay
- £130 to £145 a sleeping night
- Who sets the rate
- The carer
- What you agree, and with whom
- A sleeping night or a waking night, agreed with the carer before the first shift.
Short-term live-in cover
- What you pay
- From £1,050 a week
- Who sets the rate
- The carer
- What you agree, and with whom
- A weekly rate for a carer staying in the house, with a spare room and the breaks agreed between you.
Rates are what carers advertise on PrimeCarers with our fee included, and what home care agencies charge for the same visit. Bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the carer's normal rate and Christmas Day at twice, and mileage or travel time is payable only if it has been agreed in advance in writing.
Twenty-one hours a week, which is three visits a day, comes to £378 to £525 with a carer booked directly, against £588 to £735 through an agency. The hourly cost of care at home sets the two out in full, and the care cost calculator will price the week you need. If money was the reason the old package was hard to keep, help with paying for care covers the council and NHS routes.
Notice and complaints
Your notice, your refund, and where a complaint goes
Two separate questions come out of a cancellation: what you are owed, and whether anyone should hear about how it was handled. The first is a matter of the contract you signed, so read it before you ring. The second has a ladder to it, and skipping a rung sends you back to the bottom.
- First
The agency's own complaints procedure
Providers registered with the Care Quality Commission have to have one. Put the complaint in writing, say what you want to happen, and keep the reply. The Ombudsman will not look at a complaint the provider has not had the chance to answer.
- Alongside
The council or the NHS team, if they commissioned the care
They hold the contract with the agency, and they will want to know how the notice was given. This is a different conversation from the one about arranging cover.
- After the reply
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
It can look at adult social care arranged privately, whether paid for with your own money or a direct payment from a council, once the provider has had its chance to reply.
- Separately
The Care Quality Commission
The CQC cannot investigate or resolve an individual complaint and will not take it up on your behalf. It does use what you tell it to decide when, where and what to inspect, so it is still worth telling them.
The Ombudsman's guidance on complaints about privately arranged adult social care sets out what it will and will not look at, and the CQC page on raising a concern as a member of the public explains what it does with what you send. To check whether another agency is registered and what its last inspection said, the CQC keeps a public list of registered homecare agencies. Age UK publishes advice on arranging care at home, and trouble with a carer is the better starting point where the difficulty is with a person rather than an organisation.
The next arrangement
Making the next arrangement harder to lose
Once the immediate week is covered, an hour spent on the things below makes a second cancellation less likely, or at least less sudden. Most are questions asked early rather than protections bought later.
What helps
- Asking a new carer in the first conversation what notice they would give, and when they take their holidays
- Having a second carer you have already spoken to, for the days the first one cannot work
- A written care plan the new person can pick up from, including the medication routine and the times it happens
- Putting anything beyond the hourly rate in writing before the first visit, such as mileage or travel time
- Booking the visits that matter most first, then adding the rest once the week has settled
What leaves you exposed again
- A seven day rota resting on one person with no cover arranged behind them
- Rates and hours agreed on the phone with nothing confirmed in writing
- A medication routine that lives only in one carer's head
- Waiting until somebody resigns to find out what notice applies
- Assuming a bank holiday is charged at the ordinary rate
Carers on PrimeCarers have had their identity and right to work checked, hold an enhanced DBS on the Update Service, and have been interviewed online, and they are insured while they work. We do not check qualifications, training or references: any references sit on the carer's profile, and the skills your relative needs are for you to confirm with the carer. How we check carers sets out what is and is not verified, what to ask a carer before you book covers the conversation, and moving from agency care to a private carer sets out the difference if you are weighing up whether to go back to an agency at all.
Questions
Questions families ask when an agency cancels
The notice an agency has to give is set by the contract you or the council signed with them, so that document is the place to check first. What does not change is that a cancellation by the agency does not remove a council's duty to meet needs it has assessed as eligible. If the notice looks shorter than the contract allows, put that in writing to the agency and to whoever commissioned the care.
Ask the agency in writing what happens to anything already paid for, and ask them to point you at the clause they are relying on. If you are not satisfied with the answer, their complaints procedure comes first, and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can look at privately arranged care once the provider has had the chance to reply.
The council's. Where it has assessed someone as having eligible needs, the duty under the Care Act 2014 to meet those needs stays with the council whatever happens to the provider. Ring adult social care, say that the package has been cancelled and from when, and ask when alternative cover will start. Out of hours, ask for the emergency duty team, and keep a note of who you spoke to.
It is possible, though fewer people are free at short notice, and the carer who covers this week may not be the one who continues. On PrimeCarers you search by postcode, see who is nearby and what they charge, and message the ones whose availability fits. Nothing is booked until you and the carer agree it. Carers charge their usual rate, £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, whether the start is tomorrow or next month.
That is treated differently from an agency giving notice. Under section 48 of the Care Act 2014, where a registered provider becomes unable to carry on because of business failure, the council must meet the needs that provider was meeting in its area for as long as it considers necessary. That applies whether or not the council was funding the care, so it covers families who were paying privately. Ring adult social care and use the phrase "provider failure".
On the rates, yes. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, and home care agencies charge £28 to £35 for the same visit. The difference is in what you take on: you agree the visits, the rate and the notice with the carer, and you keep the record of what was agreed. Private carers compared with agency carers sets out both sides.
Deal with tonight on its own. Ring the council's emergency duty team and say plainly what will not happen and why that is unsafe. If the worry is medical, confusion, pain, a fall or a change in how your relative seems, use NHS 111, and 999 for anything life-threatening. Ask family or a neighbour to cover the parts of the evening that matter most, and start on the longer arrangement in the morning.