What a good carer actually does: the small things families thank them for

This is for anyone trying to picture what a good private carer actually does, day to day, whether you are searching for one now or wondering whether the carer you already have is doing a good job. It is built on calls where families rang PrimeCarers not to raise a problem, but simply because they wanted someone to know how well things were going. What they described rarely sounded like a list of household tasks. It sounded like noticing, honesty, and turning up in the right way.

Private Carers – The Definitive Guide (Updated for 2024)

Read Now

What families actually ring to say

Most calls our team makes are simple check-ins: how is everything going, is the carer still a good fit, is there anything you need. A fair number turn into something closer to a thank you. A daughter will interrupt an errand to say her mother’s carer is doing brilliantly. A client will ring mainly to make sure a compliment gets passed on properly, rather than left unsaid. What stands out across these calls is what people do not mention. Nobody rings to say a carer is good at washing, dressing or prompting medication, the practical, personal care tasks that most private carers are actually hired to do. What they mention instead is character: whether a carer notices something before being asked, whether she is honest when help is no longer needed, and whether she treats an ordinary day with patience rather than fuss. Our guide to what makes a good carer looks at these traits in general terms; this article looks at what they meant in practice, in three families’ own words.

The carer who deals with it before you have to ask

One family’s experience shows what that looks like day to day. A daughter helps coordinate care for her elderly mother, and her mother has two carers who share the week between them. One is the main carer: highly experienced, and, in the daughter’s words, very person centred. She has found her way around the various entitlement schemes and specialist support teams a family in this position might need, and she increasingly deals with these things herself rather than passing everything back to the daughter.

She just deals with it all, any updates, and I only get involved if there’s any reason to.

That single line describes something families notice more than any task list: a carer who takes the operational weight off a family’s shoulders, not by working more hours, but by knowing what to do with the hours she already has. For a daughter already stretched between her own life and her mother’s care, that is the difference between a carer she has to manage and a carer she can trust.

The carer who is there for the company

The same mother has a second carer, who covers different days and does a different kind of good. She is less experienced with the administrative side of things, so most of that still falls to the main carer, but the daughter is just as glad to have her. She provides nice company, nice food, takes her mother out for walks and plays games with her, the daughter said, and was clear that the two carers together made a good mix: one managing the practical side, one making an ordinary afternoon better.

This is worth setting out plainly because families sometimes assume a good carer has to be the proactive, take charge kind, and worry when theirs is more of a companion. Both are doing real, valued work. A carer who quietly manages the practical side and a carer who lifts someone’s day are not competing versions of the same job, and a family is often better served by both, especially where care is shared between more than one person. Our guide to private carer qualities sets out this range in more detail, and where company and companionship matter most, our guide to finding a companion carer covers that side specifically. For the same idea from the carer’s point of view, our piece on what carers notice about the families they work for looks at what carers themselves pay attention to.

Knowing when to say enough

A different family’s story shows the same principle from another angle: sometimes the most valued thing a carer does is know when to stop. A daughter called after her mother fractured her pelvis in several places. The family expected a long, difficult recovery, and booked a carer for an hour every couple of days, mainly to help with showering safely, something her mother could no longer manage alone.

After a run of visits, the carer messaged the daughter with an update most families do not expect. Rather than simply continuing the booking as it stood, she said she thought the daughter’s mother was recovering well enough not to need the following week’s visits at all.

I think your mum won’t need care for the following week. I think she’s going to be okay.

The daughter checked with her mother, who agreed. Care was paused, not because anything had gone wrong, but because it was no longer needed. The family were delighted, calling the whole experience brilliant, and said they would come straight back if anything changed. This mattered to them not because a booking ended, but because it showed the carer was judging what her mother actually needed, week by week, rather than turning up simply because a slot was booked. A carer willing to say a family needs less, not more, is telling them something true even when it costs her hours. Building that kind of trust does not happen by accident, and our guide on how to build a positive relationship with your private carer covers what helps it along from the start.

Wanting more of the carer you already have

Trust built this way tends to show itself again when circumstances change. Our team rang a daughter helping arrange care for her father about an unrelated administrative update, and she mentioned along the way that his carer was brilliant and that the arrangement had been working really well. His needs had grown since it began, though, and he now needed more care each week than the current booking covered.

Her first instinct was not to look for someone new. She wanted the same carer to take on as much of the extra time as possible, though she suspected it would be more than one person could realistically cover, and asked how best to find additional help around her if so. Our team explained that the most effective step was to update her existing job post, the advert that carers search and apply to, with the new pattern of hours, so it could be shared again with carers working locally.

We do not know whether her father’s own carer was able to take on the extra time, or who ultimately covered the gap. What the call does show is a pattern that comes up often: when a carer is doing well, a family’s instinct is to ask for more of that person first, rather than start again with someone new. Our piece on the advert is the vetting goes through how to write that kind of update so it attracts the right applicants.

Whether a family is filling extra hours or starting from nothing, it helps to know what PrimeCarers does and does not check beforehand. PrimeCarers checks each carer’s identity, right to work and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) documents, an enhanced criminal records check, and every carer completes our onboarding, our own sign-up and induction steps, before they can apply for a job post. Our guide to background checks for private carers explains what these checks cover, and what they do not.

PrimeCarers is an introductory platform and does not provide, manage, supervise or clinically assess care. Clients remain responsible for checking carer documentation, interviewing carers, checking suitability for their specific needs, and agreeing the scope of care directly with the carer.

None of that paperwork tells a family whether a carer will notice a small change in a parent’s mood, or be honest when a booking could safely be scaled back. Those qualities only really show up once a family has met someone and worked alongside them for a while, which is why a proper trial matters as much as a strong application. Our article on meeting a carer: what a good trial looks like and our piece on the certificate says yes, can they actually do it both look at how to judge that for yourself, beyond what any document can show.

What to do next

• If a carer is doing something well, say specifically what it is rather than just that they are “brilliant”. It helps the carer know what to keep doing, and it helps us match them to similar families later.
• If a carer’s hours need to grow, update your job post, the advert other carers see and apply to, with the new pattern first, so the carer you already trust has the best chance of taking on the extra time before it goes to anyone else.
• At the trial stage, ask a prospective carer how they would tell you if less care were needed, not just more. A willingness to say so honestly is one of the clearer signs of someone worth keeping.
• Remember that identity, right to work and DBS checks confirm a carer’s paperwork is in order; they do not tell you how a carer will actually behave with your family, so use a proper trial to judge that for yourself.
• If you are starting from nothing, use find a carer to search current carers or post your own job.

Related reading

• What carers notice about the families they work for
• The certificate says yes. Can they actually do it?
• Meeting a carer: what a good trial looks like, and what a bad one costs
• The advert is the vetting: how a job post decides who applies