The short answer
- Two weeks on and two weeks off is one cycle among severalCarers also work a week at a time, or four weeks with a second carer covering two. The cycle is agreed between you and the carers.
- One carer means fewer handovers and one person to coverA single carer keeps the routine in their head. They will still want weeks at home, so settle who covers those before you need it.
- The handover day is worth planning properlyAn hour or two with both carers in the house lets the one leaving talk the one arriving through the weeks just gone.
- Sharing the year between two carers does not cost moreYou pay for the weeks that are covered either way, and each carer sets their own weekly rate.
Figures on this page are what carers on PrimeCarers charge for a live-in week, £1,050 to £1,400, with our fee included.
The cycles families use
How a live-in year gets divided between carers
A live-in carer is present for the whole of a stay, so a rota here is not a shift pattern inside the day. It is a question of how long each carer stays before the next takes over. Four shapes cover nearly everything a family is offered.
One carer, with breaks agreed in advance
One carer, plus somebody for the weeks off
Twelve weeks of a placement. Each mark is a day when one carer leaves and the next arrives.
- How long each stay lasts
- As long as you both want it to
- Handover days in a year
- Only the weeks the carer takes off
The same person, day after day, so they learn how your relative likes things done and notice when something changes. A carer will still want time at home, so agree early how many weeks a year they take and who covers those weeks.
One week on, one week off
Two carers
Twelve weeks of a placement. Each mark is a day when one carer leaves and the next arrives.
- How long each stay lasts
- Seven days
- Handover days in a year
- About 52
A short cycle suits carers who live too far away to travel home often, and it means neither carer is away from their own family for long. Your relative sees a different face every week, so it asks the most of somebody who finds change difficult.
Two weeks on, two weeks off
Two carers
Twelve weeks of a placement. Each mark is a day when one carer leaves and the next arrives.
- How long each stay lasts
- Fourteen days
- Handover days in a year
- About 26
The pattern families ask about by name. Each carer is there long enough to settle into the household, and each has a proper fortnight at home, which is part of why carers stay in a placement rather than leaving it.
Four weeks on, two weeks off
Two carers
Twelve weeks of a placement. Each mark is a day when one carer leaves and the next arrives.
- How long each stay lasts
- Four weeks, then two
- Handover days in a year
- About 17
A longer main stay with a second carer covering the break. Your relative has one main carer for most of the year and a familiar second face for the rest, and the two carers do not have to be paid the same weekly rate.
- The first carer, living in
- The second carer, living in
- A handover day
None of these patterns is set by PrimeCarers. Carers on the platform are self-employed, so the cycle is something you and they agree before the first stay, and a carer's profile often says which pattern they work. Can a live-in carer work part-time? looks at the same question from the carer's side, including the pattern where a carer covers weekdays and the family covers the weekend.
The length of a stay is usually decided by where the carer lives and what their own household needs, rather than by your relative. A carer who travels a long way will often want a longer stay and a longer break, while a carer living nearby may be happy to swap weekly, so there is little to read into a preferred pattern. If you are still working out whether live-in care fits at all, live-in care sets out what a carer does across a week, and is live-in care 7 days a week? answers the question underneath most rota questions.
One carer or two
What changes when two carers share the year
The choice is rarely about money, because the weeks cost the same either way. It is about how much continuity your relative needs, set against how long one person can keep going without a break at home.
| One carer, breaks covered | Two carers on a cycle | |
|---|---|---|
| A familiar face | The same person nearly every week, so a small change is noticed early. | Two familiar people, each away for as long as they were there. |
| Handover days a year | Only the weeks the carer takes off. | One at the start of every stay, so 26 on a fortnightly cycle. |
| Rest for the carer | Needs somebody to cover their time off, arranged separately. | Built into the pattern, which is part of why a carer stays in a placement. |
| If somebody falls ill | One gap to fill, and nobody else who knows the house. | The other carer may be able to come early, though neither is obliged to. |
| Writing the routine down | Worth doing, mainly for cover weeks and for the family. | Necessary. What is not written down is lost at every handover. |
| What a week costs | £1,050 to £1,400 on PrimeCarers, our fee included. | The same range, and each carer sets their own rate. |
A familiar face
- One carer, breaks covered
- The same person nearly every week, so a small change is noticed early.
- Two carers on a cycle
- Two familiar people, each away for as long as they were there.
Handover days a year
- One carer, breaks covered
- Only the weeks the carer takes off.
- Two carers on a cycle
- One at the start of every stay, so 26 on a fortnightly cycle.
Rest for the carer
- One carer, breaks covered
- Needs somebody to cover their time off, arranged separately.
- Two carers on a cycle
- Built into the pattern, which is part of why a carer stays in a placement.
If somebody falls ill
- One carer, breaks covered
- One gap to fill, and nobody else who knows the house.
- Two carers on a cycle
- The other carer may be able to come early, though neither is obliged to.
Writing the routine down
- One carer, breaks covered
- Worth doing, mainly for cover weeks and for the family.
- Two carers on a cycle
- Necessary. What is not written down is lost at every handover.
What a week costs
- One carer, breaks covered
- £1,050 to £1,400 on PrimeCarers, our fee included.
- Two carers on a cycle
- The same range, and each carer sets their own rate.
Weekly figures are what carers on PrimeCarers charge, with our fee included. Care with more complex needs sits higher, from about £1,260 a week.
Continuity is not only a comfort. NICE's guideline on home care for older people asks services to prioritise continuity so that somebody is supported by the same workers and becomes familiar with them, and to introduce people to new workers and give notice before the people caring for them change (NG21, recommendations 1.1.4 and 1.4.7). That guidance is written for registered home care services rather than for a family hiring directly, and PrimeCarers is an introductory service rather than a care provider, so nobody applies it on your behalf. The reasoning holds in a private arrangement all the same: the carer who knows how your mother takes her tablets is the one who notices the morning she refuses them.
Where somebody has dementia, weigh that harder. A new face every fortnight can unsettle a person who no longer holds a name for more than a day, and the signs that dementia is getting worse are easiest to see for somebody who was there last month. A longer stay, or one main carer with the same second carer each time, keeps more of that.
The handover day
What happens on the day one carer leaves and the next arrives
The changeover is the weak point of any rota, and the part families are told least about. It works best as a planned few hours with both carers in the house, rather than a key left under a mat and a text message.
- The week before
Confirm the date and the times
Check both carers still have the day, and that the one arriving knows the train or the road. A live-in booking on PrimeCarers records the time the carer arrives on the first day and the time they leave on the last, and the confirmation emails state both, so the hour is fixed in writing.
- The morning
The carer leaving writes the fortnight up
Sleep, appetite, mood, skin, any fall, a new tablet, a district nurse visit, an appointment coming up. Ten minutes on paper saves an hour of questions.
- Early afternoon
An overlap with both carers there
An hour or two together covers the routine, the medicines, the equipment and what notes cannot carry, such as how your relative likes to be helped out of a chair.
- The changeover itself
Keys, numbers and the money
Keys, alarm codes, the care folder, the shopping card and who to ring first. Agree who holds a spare key, so the next changeover is not held up by one set leaving in a pocket.
- The first evening
Expect a quieter evening than usual
Your relative has met somebody new and said goodbye to somebody they had got used to. Keep the evening plain, and ring rather than visit if a visit would add to the day.
- The next day
A short call with the family
Five minutes on the phone at the end of the first full day picks up what was missed, and tells you whether the written handover was good enough to use again.
Not every changeover has an overlap. Carers travelling a long way sometimes swap on the doorstep, and then the written handover has to do all the work, with a phone call between the two carers the evening before. If both are in the house overnight, agree in advance where the one arriving will sleep, since where live-in carers sleep matters more on a changeover day than on any other. A family who has already built a hand-over pack for a break from caring has most of this written down: planning respite for the first time goes through that pack page by page.
What to hand over
What the carer arriving needs to know
Between stays, what the household knows sits in one place or it is lost. This is the list families find themselves writing after the first handover that went badly, and it is easier to write before that.
The handover folder, in three parts
0 of 9 ticked
Health and medicines
The day itself
The house and the people
The folder belongs to the household rather than to either carer, and it is worth keeping somewhere a carer arriving can find it without asking. Two of those household points have answers of their own: do live-in carers buy their own food? and what are live-in carers entitled to?, which covers rest and time away from the house. How a carer works within the day is theirs to decide, since they are self-employed rather than employed by you or by us, so a handover note records what happens rather than instructing anyone. How many hours does a live-in carer work? sets out where that line falls.
Cost and the dates to agree
What a rota costs, and the dates to settle early
A rota costs what the weeks cost. You are paying for a carer to be in the house, and that does not change because two people share the year.
£1,050 to £1,400
A live-in week on PrimeCarers, with our fee included, whether one carer covers the year or two share it. A typical week is £1,120, which is about £58,240 over a year of continuous cover.
PrimeCarers rates, September 2026, our fee included.
Each carer sets their own rate, so two carers sharing a year are not obliged to charge the same, and it is fair to ask both before you fix the pattern. A carer travelling a long distance every fortnight may also raise travel. Under the agreement between you and the carer, travel costs are payable only where the two of you have agreed them in advance and in writing, so settle it at the start rather than when an invoice arrives. Do live-in carers get paid for travel? covers how families handle it, the cost of live-in care sets out what a weekly rate covers, and PrimeCarers' pricing explains our own fee, which does not change with the number of carers you book.
Setting the rota up
Agreeing the pattern with the carers you choose
PrimeCarers introduces you to self-employed carers and does not run a rota, so the cycle, the handover and the cover are agreed between you and them. Four things to settle first.
- 1
Decide the cycle before you search
This weekWrite down the stay length you want and the day of the week you would like handovers to fall on. It is far easier to ask two carers about a fortnightly cycle than to work one out with them afterwards. - 2
Ask both carers the same questions
When you messageWhat pattern they work, how far they travel, how much notice they need if a date has to move, and what they expect on a handover day. Ask each of them about their training and experience directly: PrimeCarers checks identity, right to work and an enhanced DBS and interviews carers online, and does not check qualifications or references. - 3
Put the pattern in writing
Before day oneThe dates for the next three months, the arrival and departure times, what each carer charges, and what happens if a stay has to move. Confirm it by message or email so both carers hold the same version. - 4
Agree the cover plan while everybody is calm
Before day oneWho is rung first if a carer cannot travel, whether the other would come early or stay on, and what the family would do for two days. Agreeing that while nothing has gone wrong is far easier than working it out on the morning it does.
Read the terms before you need them. Either side can end a live-in arrangement on seven days' notice once the carer has been present for 168 hours, which is a full week; before that point, 48 hours applies. A stay cancelled by the client is payable in full, apart from unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or another reason the carer agrees to. PrimeCarers charges nothing to cancel and does not set the terms between you and the carer, so the client and carer agreement is the document to read before you change a rota or drop a stay.
If you have not hired a live-in carer before, how do I hire a live-in carer? covers writing the job description, and how should I interview live-in carers? has the questions worth asking. For what happens when the rota breaks rather than changes, what happens when your carer is ill or on holiday goes through the cover options.
Questions
Questions families ask about live-in rotas
It is one of the patterns carers work, and the one families hear named most often, but it is not a rule. Carers on PrimeCarers are self-employed and agree the cycle with you directly, so stays of one, two, three or four weeks are all arranged. What matters more than the length is whether the same two people keep coming back.
No. You are paying for the weeks that are covered, and a week costs what it costs whoever is in the house: £1,050 to £1,400 on PrimeCarers with our fee included. What changes is that the money is split between two people, and each of them sets their own rate.
Talk to the other carer on the rota, and to your backup plan, as early as you can. PrimeCarers introduces you to carers and does not supply cover itself, so there is no rota behind the scenes to fill the gap. Agreeing in advance who is rung first, and whether the carer already in the house could stay on, is what makes a gap manageable.
Some people enjoy the change of company and some find it unsettling, and dementia usually pushes the answer towards the second. NICE asks home care services to keep somebody supported by the same workers where they can, and to give notice before the people caring for them change. A longer stay, a fixed handover day and the same two faces all make a rota easier to live with.
You can ask, and some carers will take a long placement, but a carer living in your relative's home needs proper time at home themselves and will want weeks off through the year. Plan that as part of the arrangement rather than meeting it as a problem later, either with a second carer who comes back each time or with a different kind of cover. Can a live-in carer work part-time? covers the ways families share a placement.
Under the agreement between you and the carer, either side can end a live-in arrangement on seven days' notice once the carer has been present for 168 hours, and 48 hours before that point. Moving a date rather than ending the arrangement is a conversation with both carers instead. A stay cancelled by the client is payable in full, apart from unplanned hospitalisation, illness or another reason the carer agrees to.