Domiciliary care, home care, live-in care: what the words mean

The wording in that list comes from the NHS guide to homecare and from the Care Quality Commission's guidance for homecare agencies.

The words differ because the people using them are doing different jobs. A council commissions domiciliary care, because that is the phrase in its contracts. A ward asks whether care at home is in place before it will discharge anybody. Use whichever word you find easiest.

None of these words means a care home, and none means nursing. A nurse who comes to dress a wound is district nursing, arranged through the GP surgery or the community team, and free on the NHS. Care at home or a care home sets the two living arrangements against each other, and the home care guide covers what the service involves.

One word in this group means two different things. If a social worker asks whether your mother has a carer, they may be asking about you rather than anybody paid. The Care Act uses carer for an unpaid family member, and somebody in that position can ask for a carer's assessment of their own.

Families usually read up this ladder, starting with one visit a day at the hardest hour. How many visits a week your parent needs works the hours out from the tasks rather than from a guess, and the standard visits and what each covers sets out what fits into a morning, a lunch and an evening call.

The two night words are muddled most often, because a family asks for a night carer and means somebody to sleep in the house. Waking night or sleeping night explains how carers count the wakings, and the night care terms explained lines up the phrases agencies and hospices use.

Past roughly 35 hours of visits a week, live-in care usually costs less than the visits and covers the gaps between them. When live-in care becomes cheaper than visits puts the two side by side, and how live-in care works covers the room, the daily break and the shape of the week. If the booking is only to cover a fortnight while somebody else recovers, that is respite: what respite care is explains how families book it.

Somebody who now knows which of these they need can search for carers near them and compare their rates, reviews and availability. Every profile carries the carer's own rate, so you can see the cost before you speak to anybody.

The NHS calls this short-term care intermediate care, and says it is also known as rehabilitation, reablement and recovery services. Reablement is the version delivered at home, and it is meant to fade out rather than continue. A carer who stands and watches while your father makes his own breakfast is doing the job properly, even though it looks like less help.

The six free weeks sit in the regulations rather than in a local policy, so a council cannot charge for them. What the regulations do not do is promise six weeks to everybody, and support often finishes sooner. Reablement and the free six weeks covers how to ask and what to put in place before it stops, and hospital discharge explained goes through the rest of the words a ward uses.

When the free weeks end, ordinary charging begins. How to arrange home care takes the next steps in order, and hourly care costs sets out what visits cost when you are paying for them.

The list on the left is the definition in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and it matters for one reason: an organisation providing personal care in somebody's home in England has to be registered with the Care Quality Commission first. Housework and shopping alone do not fall within it, which is why a cleaning service sits in a different position from a care agency.

The list on the right is not a set of oversights. The same regulations write those arrangements out on purpose, because the Care Quality Commission registers an organisation that directs and controls care, and in those arrangements there is no such organisation. How home care is regulated goes through the three ways care at home is arranged and who checks each one, and whether a self-employed carer needs CQC registration answers it for a carer you hire directly.

What personal care is describes what those visits are like. Where the help wanted is company rather than washing, companionship care is the service to ask for, and it is usually cheaper.

The assessment does not depend on savings. The Care Act says the duty to carry one out applies regardless of the council's view of the person's financial resources, so a family with money above the limits can still ask, and it is still free. The care needs assessment covers how to ask and what happens on the day, and local authority funding covers what comes after.

A direct payment is the part that matters most to anybody who wants to choose the carer. Instead of the council arranging visits from an agency it holds a contract with, the money comes to the person or to someone acting for them. Direct payments explains how they work and what they can be spent on, and personal budgets and personal health budgets covers the NHS version.

Where no council is involved there is still a care plan, and it is worth writing. Writing a care plan with your carer sets out what to put in it.

The line between social care and healthcare is where most of the money is decided, and it is not drawn by how ill somebody looks. NHS continuing healthcare covers the assessment and how to ask for one, and the different types of care funding sets out every route in one place. Where a carer does something that would ordinarily be a nursing task, delegated healthcare tasks explains how that is arranged.

Four questions get you to the meaning of any word on this page. Ask who arranges it, whether that is the council, the NHS or you. Ask who pays for it, and on what basis. Ask how long it lasts, and whether an end date is already set. Ask whether it includes personal care, or only company and the housework.

Money is worth settling early. What care costs where you live puts a figure on a week in your relative's area, and our pricing sets out what PrimeCarers charges on top of the carer's rate.