What a private carer agreement has to cover

Nothing above is a legal opinion about your family's arrangement, and this page is not a substitute for advice from a solicitor. What it does is stop you finding out in month three that something was never agreed. Arrange care outside any platform and all twelve are yours to settle with the carer directly.

The worked example running through this page is the client and carer agreement for visits from 8 December 2025, which is what care booked through PrimeCarers runs on. It settles all twelve and is worth reading before a first visit rather than after a problem. If arranging care this way is new, the private carers guide covers how it works, and the four ways of arranging care, compared sets out who settles the agreement on each route.

Write the names down properly, including who may agree a change. Where a daughter books the visits and a son pays the invoices, a carer with a Sunday question is left guessing whose answer counts.

The status question is easy to get wrong, and the cost of getting it wrong falls on the family rather than the carer. HMRC's own guidance is direct: what the parties call their relationship is not conclusive, and it is the reality of the relationship that matters. If you set the hours, tell the carer how to do the job, require them personally rather than accepting a substitute and keep them on indefinitely, the label will not hold. Self-employed carer or employee? sets out the test.

That does not make writing it down pointless. The same guidance says a court will normally decide status on the terms of a comprehensive written contract, looking behind them mainly where the document is incomplete, varied or a sham. The written contract is extremely important, as long as it describes what happens.

The agreement used for bookings on PrimeCarers names the client, the patient and the carer as separate roles, and is explicit that the carer is a self-employed contractor responsible for their own tax and National Insurance. It also treats a care plan you give them as information rather than instruction, which is the difference between a self-employed arrangement and an employment one.

A care plan does most of this work, and it is what your carer uses day to day. How to write a care plan with your private carer has a starting structure. Let the agreement point at it rather than repeat it.

Medicines deserve their own sentences. Reminding your relative that a dose is due and opening a pack is ordinary carer work. Selecting a dose and handing it over needs training the carer has already done and something written down, and injections and feeding tubes belong to a health professional unless one has delegated the task formally. Can a private carer give medication? sets out where each task sits, and what carers are not allowed to do covers the rest.

The agreement on this site leaves the services to what the two parties agreed, including variations confirmed in writing afterwards, and requires the carer not to take on work they feel unqualified to perform. It also gives them a right to send a suitably qualified substitute, arranged and paid for by them, subject to a reasonable objection from you.

The agreement used on PrimeCarers asks the carer to make reasonable efforts to tell the client about material delays, and makes continual lateness a reason for the client to end the arrangement. On the wasted journey it takes a clear position: where the carer was available and willing to work and could not carry out the agreed tasks solely because of something at the client's end, the carer may charge the agreed fee, as long as they take reasonable steps to keep unnecessary cost down. How many carers a rota needs covers hours beyond what one person can work.

The rate a self-employed carer quotes is a gross figure that carries their tax, their National Insurance, any insurance they hold and every week they do not work. What is in the hourly rate breaks it down, how you pay a self-employed carer covers invoices, and what a booking costs sets out the fee alongside the carer's rate.

Notice runs both ways. Where a carer leaves without giving it, outside illness or a serious emergency, they are not entitled to payment for booked visits inside the notice period that were not worked, and the client may recover the reasonable cost of replacement care. Nothing stops a carer leaving at once where staying would put their own safety at risk.

Notice periods covers what is still payable while notice runs, and when your private carer is ill or on holiday covers where cover comes from.

Confidentiality in the agreement on this site limits the carer to using confidential information in service of the client, then names the exceptions: where the law requires it, where emergency medical care needs it, for insurance or legal purposes, and to a substitute who needs enough to keep care safe. Both sides agree to comply with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

On safeguarding, the agreement says PrimeCarers is not responsible for safeguarding risks arising during care, and that concerns go directly between the client and the carer, or to the statutory bodies. Behind that sits a duty on your council. Under section 42 of the Care Act 2014, where a local authority has reasonable cause to suspect that an adult in its area has care and support needs, is experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect, and cannot protect themselves because of those needs, it must make whatever enquiries it thinks necessary. Safeguarding adults and how to report a concern sets out what happens after the call.

Insurance and background checks are separate questions. Private carer insurance covers which policy does what, and background checks for private carers covers the identity check, right to work check, enhanced DBS check on the Update Service and online interview done before a carer appears.

1. 1

   Write a sentence for each of the 12 decisions

   An hour at the kitchen table

   Work down the list on this page and answer each one in plain words. Two sides of A4 covers it, and what matters is that a decision was made and recorded.
2. 2

   Go through it with the carer before anything starts

   Before the first visit

   Read it together. The clauses a carer questions are the ones worth talking about, and somebody who has worked privately before will notice what you left out.
3. 3

   Both keep a dated copy

   The same day

   Email it to each other so there are two identical dated copies rather than one piece of paper in a drawer. The agreement on this site treats email or WhatsApp as writing.
4. 4

   Review it when something changes

   And at three months

   Needs move, and an agreement written for the person your relative was in March describes somebody else by September. Put a review date in the document.

If drafting this is more than you want to take on, it does not have to be your job. Care booked through PrimeCarers runs on the standard agreement with all twelve clauses settled, so the conversation with the carer is about your relative rather than about terms. You can search for carers near you and compare their rates without paying anything, and hiring a carer, start to finish covers the rest.

Take proper legal advice, rather than relying on a page like this, in four situations: your relative cannot agree the arrangement themselves and nobody holds a lasting power of attorney; you are considering taking a carer on as an employee; a live-in carer will live in a property you own; or something has gone wrong and real money is in dispute. Citizens Advice is a national charity giving advice on consumer, employment and money problems, and Age UK is a national charity for older people with guidance on arranging care.