The short answer
- Living close by is not the same as being on callFamily next door can do a great deal of the everyday help. Washing and dressing, the nights and the hours you are at work are the parts to plan for.
- Start with visits for the hardest part of the dayAn hour every morning is 7 hours a week, £126 to £175 on PrimeCarers. A morning and an evening visit is £252 to £350.
- Nights are where an annexe is most testedAn alarm to the main house works while nights are quiet. After that, a sleeping night carer is £130 to £145 a night.
- A live-in carer needs a bedroom of their own in the annexeLive-in care is £1,050 to £1,400 a week. A second bedroom is easier to build in at the start than to add later.
Prices are what carers on PrimeCarers charge, with our fee included. Agencies charge £28 to £35 an hour for a visit.
Who does what
What family a few steps away can do, and what is better handed to a carer
An annexe puts your parent close enough that you notice when something changes. It does not give you more hours in the day, and it does not make you the right person for every kind of help.
The help family can give from the main house is the help that fits around a normal day: a cup of tea in the morning, a meal together in the evening, the shopping, lifts to the GP, and noticing that the post has not been picked up. That kind of contact is a large part of why families build an annexe in the first place, and it is worth protecting rather than using up on tasks a carer could do.
The help that wears families down is different. It is the help that has to happen at a fixed time whether or not you are at work, the help at night, and personal care such as washing, dressing and the toilet. Some parents would rather a carer helped them in the shower than their son or daughter, and some children find that doing it changes the relationship in a way they did not expect. Neither feeling is a failure. Agreeing early which parts of the day belong to a carer keeps the rest of the day for being family.
Company and keeping an eye
Easy from next door
Shopping, lifts and appointments
Easy to fit around your week
Washing, dressing and the toilet
Worth handing to a carer
Nights and the hours you are at work
Plan these before you need them
Before deciding who does what, talk it through with your parent and with any brothers and sisters, so that the person living closest does not end up doing everything. Holding a family meeting about care has a way to run that conversation, and living with elderly parents covers the day-to-day side of having a parent this close.
Two free assessments from the council are worth asking for. A care needs assessment looks at what your parent can and cannot manage, and the NHS guide to needs assessments is clear that it is free and that anyone can ask for one. A carer's assessment looks at the help you give and what would support you, and any adult who cares for someone can ask for one. If your parent has care needs, also check whether they could claim Attendance Allowance, which is not means tested and can go towards paying for visits.
How care builds up
From a morning visit to a live-in carer: the steps, and what each one costs
Care in an annexe tends to grow in steps as a parent's needs change. Each step below says when it fits, what the carer does, what is left for family, and the weekly cost on PrimeCarers.
Family close by, and a way to call for help
When it fits: Your parent washes, dresses and eats without help, and mostly wants company and the odd lift.
The carer
No paid care yet.
Family next door
Popping in, the weekly shop, lifts to appointments, and answering an alarm or call bell from the main house.
No care cost
An hour every morning
7 hours a week
When it fits: Getting up, washed and dressed has become slow, risky or a source of arguments.
The carer
Help getting up, washing or a shower, dressing, breakfast and the morning tablets.
Family next door
The rest of the day, the evenings and the shopping.
£126 to £175 a week
A morning visit and an evening visit
14 hours a week
When it fits: Bedtime has started to worry you as well: tablets missed, meals skipped, or the door left unlocked.
The carer
The morning routine, then an evening meal, nightclothes, evening tablets and the house made safe for the night.
Family next door
Daytime checks, lunch on some days, and the weekly jobs.
£252 to £350 a week
Three visits a day, and a longer visit for the weekly jobs
23 hours a week
When it fits: Your parent needs help at lunchtime too, or you cannot get home from work in the middle of the day.
The carer
Morning, lunch and evening calls, plus a two-hour visit for shopping, laundry and appointments.
Family next door
Company in the gaps between visits, and the nights.
£414 to £575 a week
Visits by day and a carer in the annexe at night
14 hours of visits and seven nights
When it fits: Your parent is up in the night, has fallen after dark, or you are listening out for them and not sleeping.
The carer
A morning and an evening visit, and a sleeping night carer who stays in the annexe and gets up if needed.
Family next door
Daytime company and checks between the visits.
£1,162 to £1,365 a week
A live-in carer in the annexe
Day and night, seven days a week
When it fits: Help is needed through the day and at night, or the gaps between visits have become the risk.
The carer
Lives in the annexe with your parent, with a bedroom of their own, and helps through the day. Getting up once or twice in the night is included.
Family next door
Visiting as family rather than as carers, and able to cover the carer’s daily break if you agree it with them.
£1,050 to £1,400 a week
Prices are what carers on PrimeCarers charge with our fee included: £18 to £25 an hour for visits, £130 to £145 for a sleeping night, and £1,050 to £1,400 a week for live-in care. Agencies charge £28 to £35 an hour for a visit. Bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the usual rate, and Christmas Day at twice.
The first paid step to consider is a morning visit, because getting up, washed and dressed is the part of the day that takes longest and carries the most risk. An hour is the shortest visit on PrimeCarers unless a carer offers shorter ones, and for personal care an hour is the length to ask for: why 15 and 30 minute calls fail explains the reasons. An annexe is a straightforward place for a visiting carer to work. There is somewhere to park, a door of its own, and family nearby to let the carer in or show them where things are on the first day.
From there, visits are added where the day is going wrong rather than by a set pattern. A lunch call helps a parent who has stopped cooking for themselves, and an evening call settles them for the night and makes sure the evening tablets have been taken. How many visits a week does my parent need? works out the hours from the tasks, and hourly care explains how visits are booked and what carers do in each one. Asking for the same carer for each visit helps your parent, and it helps you, because a carer who sees them every morning is well placed to notice a change early.
Not every family will climb the whole ladder, and some will skip steps after a fall or a hospital stay. If your parent is coming home from hospital to the annexe for the first time, hourly care after a hospital stay covers the first few weeks, when more help may be needed for a short time and then reduced.
Nights in the annexe
Nights in the annexe: who will hear your parent if they need help
During the day, being a few steps away works well. At night the house and the annexe are two separate buildings with the doors shut, and the question becomes who will hear your parent if they call, fall or get up confused.
| Who is there | Who it suits | Cost on PrimeCarers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family, with an alarm or call bell to the main house | Nobody in the annexe. Your parent presses a button and a family member walks over. | Someone who sleeps through, or gets up once and manages the bathroom safely on their own | The cost of the alarm, and your own sleep |
| A sleeping night carer | A carer sleeps in the annexe and gets up if your parent needs them, usually once or twice. | Nights that are mostly quiet, but where your parent should not be on their own | £130 to £145 a night |
| A waking night carer | A carer stays awake in the annexe all night. | Someone up often, who wanders, or who needs turning or medication in the small hours | £150 to £160 a night |
| A live-in carer | The carer lives in the annexe and is there at night as well as through the day. | Help needed by day and at night, where the night is usually quiet | £1,050 to £1,400 a week, with a waking night on top at £148 if needed |
Family, with an alarm or call bell to the main house
- Who is there
- Nobody in the annexe. Your parent presses a button and a family member walks over.
- Who it suits
- Someone who sleeps through, or gets up once and manages the bathroom safely on their own
- Cost on PrimeCarers
- The cost of the alarm, and your own sleep
A sleeping night carer
- Who is there
- A carer sleeps in the annexe and gets up if your parent needs them, usually once or twice.
- Who it suits
- Nights that are mostly quiet, but where your parent should not be on their own
- Cost on PrimeCarers
- £130 to £145 a night
A waking night carer
- Who is there
- A carer stays awake in the annexe all night.
- Who it suits
- Someone up often, who wanders, or who needs turning or medication in the small hours
- Cost on PrimeCarers
- £150 to £160 a night
A live-in carer
- Who is there
- The carer lives in the annexe and is there at night as well as through the day.
- Who it suits
- Help needed by day and at night, where the night is usually quiet
- Cost on PrimeCarers
- £1,050 to £1,400 a week, with a waking night on top at £148 if needed
Night prices are what carers on PrimeCarers charge, with our fee included. A sleeping night carer gets up when needed and sleeps the rest of the night; if they would be up often, a waking night is the right choice.
While nights are quiet, a way for your parent to reach the main house may be all that is needed. That can be a call bell or intercom between the annexe and your bedroom, or a pendant alarm that rings family phones or a monitoring centre. Pendant alarms and sensors explains the options. Whatever you choose, test it from your own bed with the doors and windows shut, because a signal that carries across the garden in the daytime may not wake you at three in the morning.
An alarm only works if your parent can press it and somebody wakes up. It is time to look at night care when your parent is up more than once a night, has fallen after dark, has started to wander or become confused in the evenings, or when you are lying awake listening for them. Overnight care explains how night carers work, and waking night or sleeping night? helps you choose between the two. A night carer in an annexe needs somewhere to sleep or sit within earshot of your parent, which in a one-bedroom annexe may mean a bed made up in the living room for a sleeping night.
A live-in carer
When a live-in carer makes sense, and what the annexe needs to have one
A live-in carer moves into the annexe and helps your parent through the day, with nights included as long as they are mostly quiet. It suits a parent who needs help at many points in the day, and it changes what the annexe has to offer.
Is it time to look at live-in care?
0 of 6 ticked
Signs the day has outgrown visits
What the annexe needs
A one-bedroom annexe can work well for visits, but it is hard to fit a live-in carer into it. The carer needs a bedroom of their own close enough to hear your parent at night, which in an annexe means a second bedroom. Some families turn the arrangement around and have the carer stay in the main house, but then nobody is in the annexe overnight. A live-in carer in a granny annexe goes through the set-ups families use, and where do live-in carers sleep? covers what the room itself needs.
Having family next door helps a live-in arrangement in ways a house on its own cannot. The carer takes a break of about two hours a day, and the live-in carer's daily break explains who can cover it; a family member walking over from the house can be the simplest answer. Live-in care with family in the house is worth reading too, because a carer working a few metres from the family home needs the same clear agreement about roles and privacy as one working under the same roof.
On PrimeCarers, live-in care costs £1,050 to £1,400 a week with our fee included, and more for complex care, against about £1,400 a week from an agency. The cost of live-in care sets out what changes the price, and live-in care explains how it works from the first conversation. For either of you, notice to end a live-in arrangement is 48 hours until the carer has worked 168 hours, and 7 days after that.
Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed, and you choose them and agree the arrangement with them directly. PrimeCarers is an introductory service and does not provide or manage the care. Before a carer appears on PrimeCarers we check their ID and right to work, they hold an enhanced DBS check (or PVG in Scotland, Access NI in Northern Ireland) issued within the last 2 years, and they have passed an online interview. We do not check qualifications, training or references: references and reviews appear on each profile unverified, so ask the carer about their experience and training yourself. Carers on PrimeCarers are insured while they work. If you would rather somebody else handled bookings and holiday cover, the managed service does that for an added percentage.
Before the build
Plan the care before the annexe is built
An annexe is designed once, and your parent may live in it for many years while their needs change. Thinking about the care they could need later is far easier at the drawing stage than after the walls are up.
- 1
Ask for a care needs assessment
Free, before the plans are finalIt sets out what help your parent needs now and is likely to need, which tells you whether the annexe should allow for a live-in carer and equipment such as a hoist. You do not have to wait for the result to start looking at carers. - 2
Design for care, not only for today
With your architect or builderLevel access, wide doors, a wet room and space either side of the bed for a hospital bed and a hoist. A second bedroom is what makes live-in care possible later. - 3
Check the planning permission and council tax
Before you buildAn annexe permission can include a condition about who may live there. Read any condition before a carer moves in, and tell the council who will live in the annexe so the right discount or exemption is applied. - 4
Look at carers near the house
Months before the moveSearch the postcode of the house to see who offers visits or live-in care nearby and what they charge, so the care can start on the day your parent moves in. - 5
Talk to two or three carers
Before the first bookingShow them the annexe or the plans, explain your parent's day, and ask how they would work alongside family next door. A carer you have already met makes the move easier for everyone.
If your parent is disabled, a Disabled Facilities Grant from the council can pay for some adaptations such as level access showers, ramps and wider doors, and gov.uk lists what it covers. Do you need planning permission for a granny annexe? explains the conditions councils attach, and is a granny annexe subject to council tax? explains the 50% discount for a relative and the full exemption when the person living there is a dependent relative.
It is also worth putting the whole plan side by side with the alternatives before you commit. Housing options for an older parent covers the other ways families keep a parent close. Building takes time, so if your parent needs help now, visits can start in the home they have today and move with them to the annexe.
Questions
Questions families ask about care in an annexe
The council assesses your parent's needs the same way wherever they live, and an annexe is their home. Whether the council pays towards the care depends on a financial assessment of their income and savings. In England, a person with more than £23,250 in savings and other capital pays the full cost of their care. Local authority funding explains the assessment and the means test.
Yes, if the annexe has a second bedroom the carer can use as their own, with a door that closes. A live-in carer does not share a room with the person they care for and should not sleep on a sofa bed. A live-in carer in a granny annexe covers the set-ups families use.
It depends on how much care your parent needs. A morning visit every day is £126 to £175 a week on PrimeCarers, and live-in care is £1,050 to £1,400 a week, against a typical care home fee of around £1,160 a week. The cost of building the annexe comes on top.
Possibly. Gov.uk sets three main conditions: you care for at least 35 hours a week, the person you care for gets a qualifying disability benefit such as Attendance Allowance, and your earnings are under a weekly limit. Where they live does not change the test. Carer's Allowance explained covers the details.
The help you usually give from next door needs covering while you are away. Families add extra visits, book a few sleeping nights, or have a live-in carer stay for the week or two. Holiday cover while you are away explains each option, and hiring a live-in carer temporarily covers short stays.
Before a carer appears on PrimeCarers we check their ID and right to work, they hold an enhanced DBS check (or PVG in Scotland, Access NI in Northern Ireland) issued within the last 2 years, and they have passed an online interview. We do not check qualifications, training or references. References and reviews appear on profiles unverified, so ask the carer about their experience directly. Carers are insured while they work.