The short answer
- An independent carer is self-employed and works for your familyNo agency stands between you. You agree the rate, the hours and what each visit covers with the carer directly.
- A privately owned agency also calls itself independentThere it means independent of the council. An agency is registered with the CQC and employs its staff, so it is worth knowing which of the two you are looking at.
- Somebody has to run the checks, and it may be youIdentity, right to work and an enhanced DBS check are either done for you before you see a profile or left for you to ask about.
- About £20 an hour, against £28 to £35 from an agencyCarers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included. The carer sets the rate and there is no booking fee on top.
PrimeCarers is an introductory service. It is not a care agency or a care provider, and holds no CQC registration. Carers found through the platform are self-employed, and the arrangement about the care is between your family and the carer.
What the word means
Independent means one of three arrangements
The word covers two different kinds of care, and a search near you turns up both. Each of these three arrangements answers the same six questions differently, and the one that matters most on a bad morning is who is responsible for putting a missed visit right.
An independent carer you find yourself
Word of mouth, a local advert, a carer already working nearby
- Who the carer works for
- Your family, directly. You agree the rate, the hours and what each visit covers.
- Who is registered with the CQC
- Nobody. Personal care from a carer working directly for the person they care for sits outside CQC registration.
- Who runs the background checks
- You do. Ask for photo ID, proof of the right to work in the UK, and an enhanced DBS certificate.
- Who holds the insurance
- The carer’s own policy, if they hold one. Ask to see it and check the dates.
- Who you ring if a visit is missed
- The carer. If they are ill or away, no cover is arranged behind them.
- What an hour costs
- £16 to £18 an hour is what carers tend to ask privately, with no platform fee on top.
An independent carer introduced through a platform
PrimeCarers works this way
- Who the carer works for
- Your family, directly. The platform introduces the carer, and the agreement about the care is between you and them.
- Who is registered with the CQC
- Nobody, for the same reason. An introductory service is not a care provider.
- Who runs the background checks
- Done before a profile appears: identity, right to work, an enhanced DBS check kept current on the Update Service, and an online interview.
- Who holds the insurance
- Carers on PrimeCarers are insured while they work. What a policy covers is a question for the carer.
- Who you ring if a visit is missed
- The carer. You can ask for an introduction to somebody else, at no charge.
- What an hour costs
- £18 to £25 an hour on PrimeCarers with our fee included, about £20 typically.
An independent care agency
Privately owned rather than run by the council
- Who the carer works for
- The agency. It employs the carers, holds the rota and sends whoever is on shift.
- Who is registered with the CQC
- The agency. Home care agencies in England have to register with the CQC, and you can read the rating before you ring.
- Who runs the background checks
- The agency, as part of taking somebody on. You are not usually shown the certificates.
- Who holds the insurance
- Carried by the agency, and built into its price.
- Who you ring if a visit is missed
- The agency office, which is responsible for sending a replacement.
- What an hour costs
- £28 to £35 an hour, the usual UK range for agency home care.
The first two are the same arrangement met in two different ways. The carer is self-employed and your family is who they work for, and what differs is who has looked at their documents before you meet them. The third is a business that employs carers and answers for the visits, where independent means privately owned rather than run by the council. Private carers and agency carers compared sets the two routes side by side, what a private carer is covers the role itself, and the private carers guide is the place to start if all of this is new to you.
The same in every case
What is true of every independent carer in England
Four things follow from a carer being self-employed rather than employed by an agency. None of them makes the care better or worse on its own, but each changes what you need to ask about.
They are not registered with the CQC, and do not need to be
Written into the regulations
You decide what the visits cover, and they decide how to work
A working arrangement, not a rota slot
Nobody checks them unless somebody arranges it
Either the platform or you
Insurance is a separate question from the checks
Ask to see the policy
That exclusion is in Schedule 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. A home care agency does have to register, as the NHS guide to help at home from a paid carer sets out, so if you are looking at an agency you can read its rating on the CQC's find care services directory before you ring. Do self-employed carers need to be registered with the CQC? covers the one situation that changes the answer, a carer trading through their own limited company. Sources checked 14 September 2026.
Checking one
How to check an independent carer before the first visit
Four documents and one conversation cover most of it. Work through these in order, because the early ones are quick and the last one is the part only you can do.
Before you agree a first visit
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The documents
The conversation
A family cannot request a DBS check on somebody else. Since 21 January 2026, self-employed workers and personal employees have been able to apply for their own enhanced check through a registered umbrella body, announced by the Disclosure and Barring Service, so a carer without a certificate needs to apply themselves. An existing one can be confirmed through the DBS Update Service with the carer's permission.
Carers found through PrimeCarers have had the first three documents checked, and an online interview, before their profile appears. What each background check covers sets out what none of the four reaches. Training, qualifications and references are not among them, which is why the conversation matters as much as the paperwork, and how to check a private carer walks through the whole process.
Money and terms
What you pay an independent carer, and what to agree in writing
You pay the carer for the hours they work, with no agency margin in the middle. The rate is straightforward. The terms around it are worth reading before the first visit, because they decide what happens to a visit your family has to cancel and how much notice either side gives.
| What the contract says | |
|---|---|
| The hourly rate | £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, about £20 typically. The carer sets the rate, and the rate you see is the rate you pay. |
| A visit your family cancels | Payable in full, apart from unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or another reason the carer agrees to. PrimeCarers charges nothing itself to cancel, and does not decide the outcome between you and the carer. |
| Ending the arrangement | Either side gives 48 hours' notice for hourly care. For live-in it is 7 days once the carer has worked 168 hours, and 48 hours before that. Notice applies to visits already agreed, not to future work. |
| Bank holidays and Christmas Day | Bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the carer's normal rate, and Christmas Day at twice the normal rate. |
| Travel time and mileage | Not charged unless you and the carer agree it in advance and write down the rate and when it applies. |
| Paying the carer | The carer invoices for the hours worked and handles their own tax and National Insurance, because they are self-employed rather than your employee. |
The hourly rate
- What the contract says
- £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, about £20 typically. The carer sets the rate, and the rate you see is the rate you pay.
A visit your family cancels
- What the contract says
- Payable in full, apart from unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or another reason the carer agrees to. PrimeCarers charges nothing itself to cancel, and does not decide the outcome between you and the carer.
Ending the arrangement
- What the contract says
- Either side gives 48 hours' notice for hourly care. For live-in it is 7 days once the carer has worked 168 hours, and 48 hours before that. Notice applies to visits already agreed, not to future work.
Bank holidays and Christmas Day
- What the contract says
- Bank holidays are charged at one and a half times the carer's normal rate, and Christmas Day at twice the normal rate.
Travel time and mileage
- What the contract says
- Not charged unless you and the carer agree it in advance and write down the rate and when it applies.
Paying the carer
- What the contract says
- The carer invoices for the hours worked and handles their own tax and National Insurance, because they are self-employed rather than your employee.
Taken from the client contract on PrimeCarers, which is the source of truth for these terms. A carer you find elsewhere sets their own terms, so ask what they are before the first visit.
An hour from an independent carer costs less than the same hour from an agency because you are paying one person rather than a person plus an office. Fifteen hours a week comes to £270 to £375 on PrimeCarers, against £420 to £525 from an agency. What a private carer costs per hour breaks the rates down by area, and the hourly cost of care at home shows what a week and a month come to.
Finding one nearby
How to find an independent carer near you
Distance matters more than it looks on a profile. A carer who lives twenty minutes away can cover an early morning and come back in the evening, and a short journey is one less thing making the arrangement hard to keep up.
- 1
Search by the postcode where the care is needed
FreePut in your parent's postcode rather than your own and look at who is within a short drive. Every profile shows the carer's rate, experience, availability and the reviews families have left. - 2
Write down the week before you message anybody
Half an hourThe days, the times and what each visit is for. It saves repeating yourself to four people, and it becomes the start of the care plan the carer works from. - 3
Message two or three, then talk to them
This weekAsk about their experience with the condition, the training they have done and what happens when they are away. The phone call tells you more than the profile does. - 4
Agree the arrangement in writing before the first visit
Before they startThe rate, the hours, what the visits cover, what the carer will not do and how much notice either side gives. It does not have to be formal, but it does have to exist. - 5
Book what you are sure of, then adjust
Week oneAn hour every morning, for example, with a second visit added once the carer has seen how the mornings go. Hours can go up or down without renegotiating a package.
When you are ready, you can search for carers near you and compare their rates and reviews. How we check every carer sets out what is done before a profile appears, the first week with a new carer covers what to expect once somebody starts, and when your carer is ill or on holiday covers the weeks they cannot work. If the arrangement is not working, raise it directly and early. Handling problems with a carer sets out the steps.
Questions
Questions families ask about independent carers
A carer who is self-employed and works directly for the family who engage them, rather than being employed by a care agency. You agree the rate, the hours and what each visit covers, and the carer handles their own tax and National Insurance. Privately owned care agencies also use the word, meaning independent of the council, so it is worth checking which of the two you are looking at.
In everyday use, yes. All three describe somebody working directly for a family rather than for an agency. Personal assistant is the term councils tend to use, particularly where a direct payment is paying for the hours. What is a private carer? covers the role in full.
Not as individuals. The regulations that set out what the Care Quality Commission regulates leave out personal care given by a carer working under the direction of the person they care for, with no employment agency involved, so there is no register of independent carers to look up. Home care agencies do have to register, and their inspection reports are published. An individual carer is checked by the platform that introduces them, or by you.
Ask for four things: photo identification, proof that they can work in the UK, an enhanced DBS certificate, and whatever insurance they hold while working. A certificate only covers the day it was issued, so ask whether they are on the DBS Update Service, which lets you confirm online, with their permission, that nothing has changed. Since 21 January 2026 a self-employed carer can apply for their own enhanced check through a registered umbrella body. Then ask about training and experience, which no background check covers.
Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, and about £20 is typical. An agency charges £28 to £35 for the same visit, because its price covers the office and the rota as well as the carer. What a private carer costs per hour breaks it down by area.
Not usually. A carer who works for several clients and decides how the work is carried out is self-employed, and you are engaging them rather than employing them. You become an employer when you control the hours and the way the work is done as an employer would, and that brings payroll, holiday pay, a pension and employers' liability insurance of at least £5 million. Self-employed carer or employee? sets out where the line falls, and employing a private carer covers the duties in full.