Keeping the Family Informed About a Parent's Care

The short answer

Your parent decides who is told about their healthIf they can make the decision, the GP and hospital need their consent before sharing with any of you, and they can agree to some things and not others.
One written update a week saves a lot of phone callsA short note to everyone at the same time means nobody hears a different version, and the group chat can stay for quick practical messages.
Agree one main contact for the GP and the hospitalNHS App proxy access can let more than one person book appointments and order prescriptions, if your parent agrees and the surgery sets it up.
Serious news goes by phone or in personA diagnosis, a hospital admission or a big change should never reach a brother or sister for the first time in a group chat.

This guide is for families in England. It covers everyday arrangements, not legal authority: for decisions on your parent's behalf, see the pages on power of attorney linked below.

Who needs to know what

Start with what your parent wants shared, then decide who needs what

Not everyone needs everything. A brother who lives two hundred miles away needs to know about a fall, but he probably does not need to hear about every late visit. Working this out once saves the main contact from deciding it again every time the phone rings.

It is easy to become the family switchboard without choosing to. You live nearest, or you were the one at the hospital, and from then on the GP rings you, the carer messages you, and you pass it all on to everyone else, often several times over and in slightly different words. The rest of the family hear things late and second-hand, and some of them feel left out of decisions. The aim of this page is to share the load of keeping people informed, in the same way as caring for a parent shares the practical work. The hub on organising care as a family covers the rest of that picture, and sharing care between siblings covers splitting the rota and the money.

Before deciding who gets told what, ask your parent. Their health information belongs to them. NHS guidance on sharing information with unpaid carers says health and care professionals need the person's explicit consent before sharing information about their health and care with a carer, and that a decision not to share must be respected. It also says a person may be happy for only some information to be shared, on a need-to-know basis, or may want a carer to have full access. The same principle is worth following within the family. Your mother may be glad for her daughter to hear everything from the GP and still not want her grandchildren knowing about her continence. A father may want the family told about his diagnosis by him, in his own time.

So ask plainly, at a calm moment, and write down the answer. Who can the GP talk to? Is there anything they want kept between them and one person? Who do they want to hear first if they go into hospital? If you hold a family meeting to agree the wider plan, this is a good first item; the guide to holding a family meeting about care covers how to run one with your parent in the room.

The grid below is a starting point for the conversation. It assumes your parent is happy for the family to be kept informed and shows, for six common kinds of news, who needs to hear it straight away and who can wait for the weekly update.

Tell nowA call or a message the same day
Weekly updateIn the written round-up at the end of the week
Not neededLeave it out unless something changes

The news	Your parent	The main contact	The rest of the family	The paid carer
A missed or late visit	Tell now So they know who is coming and when	Tell now To arrange cover	Weekly update Sooner if someone needs to go round	Tell now Whoever covers the next visit
A fall, even without an injury	Tell now Talk it through and ask who they want told	Tell now The same day	Weekly update By phone the same day if they were hurt	Tell now So they can watch for changes
A GP or hospital result	Tell now It is their result, and the doctor tells them first	Tell now If your parent agrees	Weekly update Only what your parent is happy to share	Not needed Unless it changes what they do at a visit
A change in medication	Tell now With the new times written down	Tell now To check the repeat prescription	Weekly update Anyone who stays over needs the new list	Tell now Before their next visit if they prompt tablets
A hospital admission	Tell now Tell them who has been told	Tell now By phone	Tell now By phone, not in the group chat	Tell now So visits can be paused
Money: bills, benefits and care fees	Tell now It is their money and their decision	Tell now Or whoever handles the paperwork	Not needed Unless they pay towards care	Not needed Apart from their own invoices

A missed or late visit

Your parentSo they know who is coming and when: Tell now
The main contactTo arrange cover: Tell now
The rest of the familySooner if someone needs to go round: Weekly update
The paid carerWhoever covers the next visit: Tell now

A fall, even without an injury

Your parentTalk it through and ask who they want told: Tell now
The main contactThe same day: Tell now
The rest of the familyBy phone the same day if they were hurt: Weekly update
The paid carerSo they can watch for changes: Tell now

A GP or hospital result

Your parentIt is their result, and the doctor tells them first: Tell now
The main contactIf your parent agrees: Tell now
The rest of the familyOnly what your parent is happy to share: Weekly update
The paid carerUnless it changes what they do at a visit: Not needed

A change in medication

Your parentWith the new times written down: Tell now
The main contactTo check the repeat prescription: Tell now
The rest of the familyAnyone who stays over needs the new list: Weekly update
The paid carerBefore their next visit if they prompt tablets: Tell now

A hospital admission

Your parentTell them who has been told: Tell now
The main contactBy phone: Tell now
The rest of the familyBy phone, not in the group chat: Tell now
The paid carerSo visits can be paused: Tell now

Money: bills, benefits and care fees

Your parentIt is their money and their decision: Tell now
The main contactOr whoever handles the paperwork: Tell now
The rest of the familyUnless they pay towards care: Not needed
The paid carerApart from their own invoices: Not needed

If your parent can make their own decisions, they choose who hears about their health, and their wishes come before this grid. The main contact is whoever the family has agreed deals with the GP, the council and the carer.

Chat, update and calendar

A group chat for quick messages, and one written update a week

If your family already has a group chat, it is good at some things and poor at others. Adding a weekly written update and a shared calendar covers most of what the chat cannot do.

The family group chat

Good for 'I am going round at six' or 'she has had lunch'. Things get lost as it scrolls, a short message can read as sharper than it was meant, and it is easy to post something about your parent that they would not want read by everyone in the group.

For quick, practical messages

A weekly written update

The main contact writes a few lines on the same day each week and sends them to everyone at once. It replaces several separate phone calls, and everyone has the same version to refer back to.

One message, once a week

A shared calendar

A free shared calendar on your phones, with GP and hospital appointments, who is taking your parent, and who is visiting when. Anyone can check it without asking.

Appointments and visits

A care diary

A dated record of sleep, eating, falls and confusion, kept for the professionals rather than for the family. It is a different job from the weekly update.

Facts for the GP and the council

The weekly update is the change that makes the most difference to the person doing the relaying. Keep it short, the same shape every week, and factual. A few lines under the same headings are enough: how your parent has been, any appointments and what was said, anything that has changed with the carers or medication, what is coming up next week, and anything you need help with. Sending it to everyone at the same time means nobody finds out second-hand from a sibling who heard it first, which can cause resentment. It also gives relatives who feel shut out something regular to rely on, so they ring less often to ask.

Ask your parent whether they want to see the update before it goes, or to have a copy. Some parents like reading it. Others would rather not know they are being written about, and in that case keep the update brief and practical and leave out anything personal. The guide to privacy and dignity for an older person is useful on where to draw that line.

A shared calendar does a different job. Put in every appointment with the time, the place and who is taking your parent, and anyone who wants to help can see where the gaps are. It is also where the family can see visits from a paid carer if you add them, which helps a sibling planning a weekend visit.

The care diary is separate again. It records what the GP, a social worker or a benefits assessor will ask for: dates, times and facts. Keeping a care diary explains what to write and why. The weekly update can mention what the diary shows, but the diary itself does not need to be read by the whole family.

The GP and the hospital

Getting the GP and the hospital to talk to more than one of you

A GP surgery or a hospital ward that is rung by four relatives about the same patient gives four partial answers. Agreeing one main contact helps, and with your parent's consent, the NHS App lets more than one of you see appointments and prescriptions.

Start with the main contact. Agree which one of you the GP surgery, the hospital and the council should ring, usually the person who lives nearest or goes to most appointments, and ask your parent to tell the surgery that this person can be spoken to. The surgery can record their consent in your parent's notes. The main contact then passes news on through the weekly update, or by phone if it cannot wait.

On a hospital ward, you will be asked for a next of kin. University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust's guidance on next of kin explains that the term has no legal status and is undefined in English law, so being named gives no power to make decisions. In practice it records who the ward should contact, and your parent can name anyone they choose. Make sure the ward has the main contact's number and knows who else your parent is happy for them to talk to. If the rest of the family ring the ward for updates, the staff will be answering the same questions many times, which takes time away from patients. It helps if they ring the main contact instead.

The NHS App can take a lot of the relaying out of GP matters. With family and carer access, sometimes called proxy access, a relative can book appointments, order repeat prescriptions and, depending on what the surgery agrees, see test results, from their own NHS App. The steps below come from the NHS pages on giving someone access to your health services and using family and carer access.

1
Your parent agrees and asks the surgery
Their consent comes first
Your parent asks their GP surgery to give a trusted person access. They do not have to share all of their medical information: they can choose what that person sees, and can remove access at any time by telling the surgery.
2
Check you are at the same surgery
An NHS requirement
The NHS says you and your parent need to be registered at the same GP surgery. You do not need to live together. A relative registered with a different surgery cannot be given this access.
3
The surgery checks and sets it up
Identification needed
The surgery sets up the access and will ask for identification. Some surgeries let you start the request in the NHS App for them to approve.
4
More than one person can have access
If your parent wants
Your parent can ask for access for more than one person, and NHS England guidance for surgeries says each person can have a different level of access.

If your parent cannot give consent, NHS England's guidance to GP practices on proxy access says access can still be given to somebody who holds a health and welfare lasting power of attorney, to a deputy appointed by the court, or where the GP decides it is in your parent's best interests. The guide to caring for parents from a distance has more on proxy access for relatives who live further away.

A lasting power of attorney for health and welfare can only be used when your parent is unable to make their own decisions, so while your parent can decide, the conversation about who is told what stays with them. Our pages on lasting power of attorney and what to do when a sibling has power of attorney cover what the attorney can and cannot do, and how to keep the rest of the family involved when one sibling holds the document.

When carers are involved

Letting the whole family read the carer's visit reports

Once a paid carer is visiting, there is a new stream of news: how the visit went, what your parent ate, whether anything worried the carer. If every message goes to one person, that person becomes the relay again.

Whoever the carer is, agree at the start who they should contact, and about what. The carer needs one person to ring about something urgent, such as a fall or your parent not answering the door, and that should be the main contact. For everything else, it helps if the family can read what the carer writes without having it forwarded.

If you use PrimeCarers to find a carer, the person who set up the account can invite other family members from the My Family page of your PrimeCarers account, by email, by copying a link, or by sharing it straight into WhatsApp. Each relative accepts the invite and signs in with their own login, or signs up first, so nobody shares a password. An unused invite expires after seven days and can be sent again.

The owner chooses a level of access for each person, and can change it or remove someone later. Only the owner can invite people, change access or remove them.

	What they can do	Visit reminders and reports by email
Owner	Full access, including managing who else is on the account.
Family Member	Book visits, send messages and edit information.
View Only	See information, but not change anything.
Finance	See and manage invoices and payments only.

Owner

What they can do: Full access, including managing who else is on the account.
Visit reminders and reports by email

Family Member

What they can do: Book visits, send messages and edit information.
Visit reminders and reports by email

View Only

What they can do: See information, but not change anything.
Visit reminders and reports by email

Finance

What they can do: See and manage invoices and payments only.
Visit reminders and reports by email

Finance members receive the money side rather than visit updates. The guide to sharing care with family on PrimeCarers covers each level in more detail.

When a carer accepts a job, the conversation with that carer includes the family members on the account, so a brother and a sister can both read and reply to the carer rather than passing messages between them. To send messages, a relative needs the Owner or Family Member level.

Visit reminders, the reports the carer writes after each visit, cancellations and a daily round-up go by email to everyone on the account with Owner, Family Member or View Only access. Reports are grouped into one email for the family, so nobody's inbox fills with a message per visit. Everyone reads the same report, so nobody is relaying news second-hand. The reports are also kept on the Reports tab of your parent's profile in the account, and you can download them as a PDF for a date range to give to the GP, a social worker or relatives who are not on the account. Written notes are published after a check, so a report may not appear the moment a visit ends.

Two things are worth knowing. Your parent's consent still applies: if they would not want a particular relative reading about their personal care, that relative does not need to be added to the account. And the account does not replace the weekly update or the care diary, because it covers the carer's visits, not the GP, the hospital or how the family is managing. Sharing care with family on PrimeCarers walks through setting it up.

If your family is looking for paid help that everyone can follow in this way, you can search for carers near your parent and compare their rates. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour, with our fee included. The family chooses the carer and agrees the visits directly with them.

Passing on bad news

Telling the family bad news by phone or in person

Some news should never arrive as a notification. A diagnosis, a hospital admission, or a decision that your parent can no longer live alone deserves a conversation with the people it affects.

What helps

Ringing each close relative yourself, or meeting them, before anything goes in writing
Asking your parent first who they want to tell, and whether they want to tell anyone themselves
Deciding the order of calls in advance, so nobody close hears it from someone further away
Saying what is known, what is not known yet, and when you expect to know more
Following up with a short written note of the facts, so people can read it again when they are less shocked

What tends to go wrong

Posting a diagnosis or an admission in the family group chat
Leaving a sibling to find out from a cousin, or from social media
Guessing about what a doctor meant before you have asked
Sending bad news late at night to someone who is alone
Carrying all the calls yourself when another sibling could share them

A phone call gives the other person the chance to ask questions and react, and it gives you a chance to hear how they are taking it. A message read on a train or at work leaves them alone with it. If there are several people to tell, split the calls between two of you, and agree what you will each say, so the facts are the same.

Tell your parent who has been told. If your parent has news of their own to give, such as a diagnosis, some parents want to tell each of their children themselves, and the family should let them.

Being the main contact is tiring, and more so when the news is bad. If you are doing most of the relaying as well as most of the caring, you can ask the council for a carer's assessment to look at the support you need. If one sibling leaves the relaying to you and never offers to help, when siblings are not helping covers how to ask for a fairer split, and when siblings disagree about a parent's care covers what to do if the updates themselves become a source of argument.

Questions

Questions families ask about keeping everyone informed

Only with your parent's consent if they can make that decision. NHS guidance says professionals need explicit consent before sharing information about someone's health and care with a carer, and a decision not to share must be respected. Your parent can agree to some information being shared and not the rest. The GP can still listen to your concerns, so you can always tell the surgery what you have noticed.

Yes, if your parent wants that. The NHS says a patient can ask for family and carer access for more than one person. Each person must be registered at the same GP surgery as your parent, and the surgery sets up the access and asks for identification. A relative registered with a different surgery cannot be given it.

No. Next of kin has no legal status in England. Hospitals use it to record who to contact. To make decisions on your parent's behalf when they cannot, you need a lasting power of attorney that has been registered, or to be appointed as a deputy by the Court of Protection.

Once a week in writing is enough for everyday news, sent to everyone at the same time. Anything urgent, such as a fall or a hospital admission, should go by phone on the day to the people who need it, with the weekly update carrying the follow-up.

If your parent is happy for them to, it saves a lot of relaying. On PrimeCarers, family members with Owner, Family Member or View Only access receive visit reports by email, grouped into one email for the family, and can read them on the Reports tab. If your parent would rather a relative did not see details of their personal care, respect that.

How your parent has been, any appointments and what was said, changes to carers or medication, what is coming up next week, and anything you need help with. Keep it to a few lines under the same headings each week, and leave out anything your parent would not want shared.

Keeping the whole family informed about a parent's care

A group chat for quick messages, and one written update a week

The family group chat

A weekly written update

A shared calendar

A care diary

Getting the GP and the hospital to talk to more than one of you

Your parent agrees and asks the surgery

Check you are at the same surgery

The surgery checks and sets it up

More than one person can have access

Letting the whole family read the carer's visit reports

Telling the family bad news by phone or in person

Questions families ask about keeping everyone informed

Find support for the person who provides care

Looking for a carer the whole family can follow?