Live-in care so you can stop driving up every weekend

Live-in care is not right for everyone. Your parent has to want it, there has to be a private bedroom for the carer, and it costs more than the drives do. But when the drives are holding the week together, it is the option that replaces them. Live-in care explains how it works and what it costs.

The assumptions behind those numbers:

• Distance. Your parent lives 150 miles away, so each weekend is a 300-mile round trip.
• Speed. You average 50 miles an hour on a mix of motorway and A roads, so each way takes 3 hours of driving.
• Breaks. You stop for 15 minutes each way. The Highway Code, rule 91, advises a break of at least 15 minutes after every two hours of driving.
• How often. You go 40 weekends a year, missing about a dozen for holidays, illness and the rest of life.
• Fuel. A petrol car of 1401cc to 2000cc, at HMRC's advisory fuel rate of 17p a mile, which applies from 1 September 2026. These rates are meant to cover fuel only, and HMRC reviews them every three months.
• Work. One weekend in 4, you take Friday afternoon off to set off before the traffic.

Fuel is not the whole cost of the car. HMRC's approved mileage rate for 2026-27, the amount an employer can pay tax-free for business journeys, is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 miles, because it also allows for wear, tyres and servicing. At that rate a 300-mile weekend comes to £165. It is a rough guide to running costs, not a figure for your own car.

If two or more of these sound familiar, it is worth working out how many hours of help your parent needs in a week. Signs your parent needs live-in care goes through the signs in the day and the family, and the point at which visits stop being enough.

1. 1

   The chores move to the carer

   Every day, not only at weekends

   The shopping, the laundry and the house are done as part of the week. You stop arriving to a list.
2. 2

   Somebody is there when something happens

   Day and night

   If your parent falls or is unwell, the carer is already in the house and can ring 999, 111 or the GP surgery, and then you. You are no longer the first person who has to get there.
3. 3

   You choose when to drive up

   Not because you have to

   You might go once a month for a long weekend, or still most weekends because you want to. The choice is yours again.
4. 4

   You become the person who knows the carer

   Your part from now on

   You agree the routine with the carer and your parent, take their calls, and check now and again that the arrangement still fits. It is a smaller job than doing the care yourself every weekend.

A live-in carer needs a private bedroom with a door that closes, and about two hours a day to themselves, usually in the afternoon. Plan who covers that time if your parent cannot be left alone, and plan what happens when the carer takes time off.

Agree with the carer at the start who they ring first, and for what. Hiring a carer for a parent who lives far away covers meeting carers by video, the first fortnight, and the back-up plan for when your carer is ill or on holiday.

If you still give your parent regular help, you can ask their council for a free carer's assessment (NHS guidance, checked November 2026). It looks at what would help you, such as a break from caring or support groups, and the council will write a support plan with you if you qualify.