Respite care in West Midlands

It depends on the kind of respite. A live-in carer who stays in the house costs about £150 a day, or £1,050 a week, in West Midlands. Visits of two hours a day at around £19 an hour come to £38 a day, or £266 a week. A carer sleeping in overnight is £160 to £190 a night. Care homes nearby that publish a respite price ask a median of £1,545 a week, about £221 a day. A published price can be a starting price for the cheapest room, so ask each home what your stay would cost. How respite costs compare across the country puts these beside the national figures.

For a live-in carer who stays in the house, a week is typically £1,050 in West Midlands, so a fortnight is about £2,100. For daily visits instead, carers here advertise around £19 an hour, so two hours a day comes to roughly £266 a week. A local agency charges about £24 an hour for the same visits, because you are paying the agency as well as the carer. Nothing is charged until you book.

On the published fees, yes. A standard residential place in a care home in West Midlands is around £1,184 a week, the median of 33 homes nearby that publish a fee. That is the long-stay rate, and a short respite stay can be priced higher. A live-in carer at home is typically £1,050. Two things can matter more than the headline figure. A care home charges per person, so a couple pays twice while one live-in carer covers both. And a respite stay means packing, moving and settling somebody into an unfamiliar building for a fortnight, then moving them home again, which for some people is the hardest part of the break.

It depends on who is free. You are talking to self-employed carers directly, so there is no agency rota to wait for, and some carers can start within a few days. If your break is already in the diary, particularly over school holidays or Christmas, it is worth lining someone up now. You can message carers and agree dates before committing to anything.

Possibly. If you look after someone regularly you are entitled to a carer's assessment from your council, which is separate from any assessment of the person you care for, and it can lead to funding for a break. It is worth asking even if the person you look after pays for their own care, because the assessment is about your needs, not theirs. West Midlands council sets out how it charges for care and support. How to fund respite care goes through the options.

Whatever you normally do, agreed in advance and written down before you go. That can cover personal care, medication prompts, meals, keeping the house going and company, plus anything specific like a hoist or a night routine. A live-in carer sleeps in the house and is there overnight. If the person you look after is up several times a night, say so early, because that needs a waking night rather than a live-in arrangement and is priced differently.

Tell us and we will help you look for someone else, although a replacement carer cannot be guaranteed. We are an introductory service rather than an agency: we do not employ the carers and we do not run a rota, so there is no bank of staff to send. For a longer break it is sensible to line up a second carer you have already spoken to, so there is somebody who knows the situation.