The short answer
- Write the ordinary day down before the first visitWhen your relative wakes, what they have for breakfast, when the tablets are due, and what they still do for themselves. A carer working from a written day is not guessing on the doorstep.
- Settle how the carer gets in, and try it yourself firstA key safe, a key of their own, a neighbour with a spare, or your relative answering the door. Each needs something agreed before the first visit rather than after the first missed one.
- You can set house rules, and you cannot set the methodWhich rooms are private, what the visit covers, how you want to hear about it. How a task is carried out stays with the carer, and that sits in the contract you both work under.
- Expect to change the hours at the end of week oneEarly visits run over while a carer learns a house. Ask the carer what they would change about the times, then change the booking rather than waiting for it to settle.
PrimeCarers is an introductory service, not a care agency, and holds no CQC registration. Carers are self-employed, so everything on this page is agreed between your family and the carer directly.
The first week
What the first week looks like, day by day
Five points carry most of the work, set out in the order you meet them. Nothing here is difficult on its own. It is the ones nobody thought about in advance that make a first week feel harder than it needs to be.
- Before
Before the first visit
The carer arrives knowing only what you have told them. An hour spent writing the day down now is the difference between a first visit that works and a first visit spent asking questions.
- Write the ordinary day out: waking, washing, breakfast, the tablets, lunch, the evening.
- Put allergies, the medicines list and the GP surgery number on one sheet, kept where the carer will find it.
- Agree how the carer gets in, and try the arrangement yourself before the day.
- Give the carer two numbers: yours and somebody who lives nearer.
Where this gets you
The carer knows what the visit covers, what it does not, and who to ring first.
- Day 1
The first visit
The first visit is an introduction as much as a piece of care. Being there for the start of it helps, particularly if your relative is uneasy about a stranger in the house.
- Introduce your relative by the name they want using, and let them speak for themselves.
- Walk the carer round: the bathroom, the stairs, the boiler, the stopcock, the bin day.
- Say which rooms are private and which cupboards are not to be opened.
- Leave once the introduction is done, so the two of them can get on with the visit.
Where this gets you
Your relative has met the carer, and the carer has seen the house rather than a description of it.
- Days 2 to 4
While the carer learns the house
Early visits run long or short. A carer who has never made tea in this kitchen is slower at it, and a task you expected to take ten minutes can take half an hour the first time.
- Read what the carer writes down rather than asking your relative how it went.
- Answer questions by message, so the carer is not guessing and you are not calling round.
- Let small differences pass. A bed made another way is not a problem to raise.
- Write down anything that does need saying, so it comes up in one conversation at the end of the week.
Where this gets you
The visits start to take the time they were booked for.
- End of week 1
The conversation at the end of the week
One short call with the carer, and one open question to your relative. This is where the hours you booked get corrected, while everyone still expects them to change.
- Ask the carer what they would change about the times or the length of the visits.
- Ask your relative what the two of them talked about, rather than whether the visit was all right.
- Change the booking if the mornings are running over, rather than hoping they settle.
- Raise anything specific now, calmly and once, instead of letting it build.
Where this gets you
The week you booked matches the week your relative needs.
- Week 6
The first proper review
NICE guideline NG21 asks home care services to review a care plan within six weeks of it starting, then regularly after that. It is a sensible date for a private arrangement to borrow.
- Read the plan you wrote before the first visit and correct what is now out of date.
- Ask the carer what they have noticed that you have not, particularly about eating, sleeping and mood.
- Agree the next review date while you are both on the call.
Where this gets you
The written plan describes the care as it is now, not as you guessed it would be.
None of this is unique to a carer you found yourself. NICE guideline NG21 on home care sets out what a home care service in England should have in place around somebody living at home: a written plan, a record of every visit, a plan for a missed visit, and a review within six weeks. It is written for regulated providers and for councils buying care, and a self-employed carer working for your family is neither, so nobody hands them a policy. Borrowing the parts that apply is the simplest way to set a private arrangement up well. Sources checked on 14 September 2026.
If this is the first carer your family has arranged, the private carers guide covers the arrangement as a whole, and preparing for your carer's first day covers getting the house ready. If your relative has dementia, a new face and a new routine in one week is a great deal of change at once, and dementia care covers what helps alongside.
The handover
What to write down before the first visit
A handover is the information a carer needs in order to work without asking. Written down, it takes an hour once. Left in conversation, it comes back as a question at the start of every visit.
The sheet to have ready on day one
0 of 9 ticked
The ordinary day
Health and medicines
The house and the phone numbers
Keep all of it in one document rather than four messages, so there is a single place the carer looks and a single place you correct. Building a care plan with your carer has a starting template, and NICE asks that the family are given their own copy rather than the service holding the only one. If medicines are part of the visit, agree what the carer will do with each of them before the first day; what a private carer can and cannot do with medication sets out where reminding somebody ends and giving a dose begins.
Getting in
How the carer gets into the house
Every visit begins at the front door, and this is the arrangement families leave until the morning it fails. There are four ways it is normally done. Settle on one before the first visit, then try it yourself.
Your relative answers the door
No key changes hands
A neighbour or a family member lets them in
Somebody nearby holds the key
A key safe on an outside wall
A locked box with a code you choose
The carer holds a key of their own
The simplest to use, and the most to agree
Whichever you choose, write the arrangement down and test it yourself before the first visit. A key safe fitted too high to reach, and a back door that only opens if you lift it, are easier to sort out on a Sunday afternoon than at seven on a Monday morning. The NHS guide to personal alarms, monitoring systems and key safes covers what a key safe is and what to look for in one.
The same guideline asks a care worker to contact the person, or their family, when they will be late or cannot come at all. Say in the first week that you would far rather have that message than a silent gap. Cover for a week away is worth raising early too; what happens when your carer is ill or on holiday covers how families handle it.
House rules
The house rules you can set, and the ones that are not yours to set
A carer you book directly is self-employed, and the contract you both work under draws a line through the middle of this. You say what you would like to happen in your relative's home. The carer decides how the work is carried out.
Reasonable to agree in writing
- Which rooms are private, and which cupboards and drawers are not to be opened
- Whether the carer helps themselves to tea, and what else in the kitchen is theirs
- Smoking, shoes indoors, and whether a phone is answered during a visit
- Whether anybody else comes into the house with them, including children and pets
- How you want to hear how the visit went, and how soon after it
- What is outside the visit altogether, such as the garden or a second relative upstairs
Not yours to decide
- The order the tasks are done in, or the method used to do them
- When a carer takes the rest they need during a long visit
- Pressing for a task the carer has said they are not trained or insured to do
- Ruling out a substitute, when the contract gives the carer that right subject to your reasonable objection
- Standing over a visit to correct the detail when nothing has gone wrong
The contract between a client and a carer on PrimeCarers puts it plainly. The client may specify the outcomes they would like, and may not direct or supervise how the carer performs the services, because the carer keeps full discretion over the way the work is done. The clause matters beyond the paperwork, because it is what keeps the carer self-employed rather than your employee, and it is the same clause that lets a carer decline work they feel unqualified to perform. Managing private carers covers where the line sits day to day, and what carers are not allowed to do covers the tasks outside the role.
The same contract gives a carer the right to send a suitably qualified substitute, subject to reasonable objections from you, and the carer arranges and pays for that person. Ask in the first week how they would cover a fortnight away. Travel time and travel costs are chargeable only where the two of you agreed them in advance and in writing, so settle that too.
If there is a camera or a listening device in a room the carer will work in, say so before the first visit rather than after. A carer who finds one later will reasonably wonder what else was not mentioned, and naming the rooms that have none is the part they will want to hear. The Information Commissioner's Office, the UK data protection regulator, publishes guidance on home CCTV systems and the rules that apply once a camera records beyond your own property.
The end of the first week
What to check at the end of week one
One call with the carer, and one conversation with your relative. Both are easier now, while everybody still expects the arrangement to be adjusted.
- 1
Ask the carer what they would change
Ten minutes, by phoneAsk whether the hour is long enough, whether the time of day is right, and what they have noticed that you have not, rather than whether it is going well. Somebody who has been in the house five mornings running knows things you do not. - 2
Ask your relative an open question
In person if you can manage it"What did the two of you talk about?" tells you more than "was the carer all right?", which gets a yes from almost anybody who does not want to cause trouble. - 3
Change the booking rather than waiting
Before week two startsIf the morning visit has run twenty minutes over every day, book the longer visit. Hours go up and down as needed, and a carer working unpaid minutes will not keep doing it for long. - 4
Put the 6-week review in the diary
While you are both on the callNICE asks home care services to review a plan within six weeks of it starting, then regularly after that. Agreeing the date now means the review still happens in a week when nothing has gone wrong.
If the week has gone badly, say what you noticed, specifically and once, rather than waiting to see whether it improves. Times and tasks are what go wrong most in a first week, and a single conversation clears up a good deal of it. Handling problems with a carer walks through the steps for when a conversation has not been enough. Ending an hourly arrangement takes 48 hours' notice under the contract, live-in care needs longer once 168 hours have been worked, and PrimeCarers charges nothing to introduce you to somebody else. Before you decide, read how trust builds between your relative and their carer, because a businesslike first week is not the same thing as a bad one.
A first week is rarely a safeguarding matter, and the few things that are do not wait for a review date. If you are worried that your relative is being harmed or neglected by anybody, the NHS guidance on abuse and neglect of adults at risk says to ring their local council and ask for the adult safeguarding coordinator, and to speak to the police where a crime may have been committed.
Questions
Questions families ask about the first week
Being there for the introduction helps, particularly if your relative is uneasy about a stranger in the house, and it is the easiest moment to walk the carer round. Leave once that is done, so the two of them can get on with the visit. What matters more than your presence is that the routine, the medicines and the phone numbers are written down in advance. Preparing for your carer's first day covers what to have ready.
One sheet with the ordinary day on it, one with the medicines, their times and who fills the pack, and one with phone numbers in the order you want them rung. Add what a stranger cannot find, such as the stopcock and the bin day, and say which rooms are private. NICE guideline NG21 asks for the same information in a written home care plan, and for the family to have their own copy.
Families do it, and the way to do it safely is to write the arrangement down: that the carer holds a key, that the fob carries no name or address, and that the key comes back when the arrangement ends. A key safe is the alternative, and the NHS describes it as a small locked box fixed to an outdoor wall, opened with a code you choose, with some models police-approved. Change the code whenever somebody stops coming. What each background check covers sets out what is confirmed about a carer before their profile appears, and what none of the checks reaches.
Yes, for the house. Which rooms are private, smoking, shoes indoors, whether anybody comes in with them, and what is outside the visit altogether are all reasonable to agree in writing before the first day. What you cannot set is the method. The contract says a client may specify the outcomes they want but may not direct or supervise how the carer performs the work, because the carer is self-employed and keeps discretion over how a task is done.
Whatever the two of you agreed in advance, which is why it needs settling before the first visit. NG21 asks home care services to plan for a missed visit, including arranging for a family member or a neighbour to go round and giving the care worker their details. Set how long the carer waits, who they ring first and second, and the point at which they call 999.
Under the contract between a client and a carer, a visit cancelled by the client is payable in full, with the exceptions of unplanned hospitalisation, illness, or another reason the carer agrees to. Tell the carer as early as you can and ask. PrimeCarers charges nothing itself for a cancellation and does not set the terms between you and the carer.
Raise the specific thing you noticed, calmly and once, rather than waiting to see whether it improves. Times and tasks are what go wrong most in a first week, and one conversation settles a good deal of it. If that has not worked, handling problems with a carer sets out the steps. Ending an hourly arrangement takes 48 hours' notice under the contract.