Independent · no commission from any care provider · fees published
Professionals
Independent, nurse-led care advice — with no care-provider commissions.
My Care Direction is an independent care consultancy led by a registered nurse with 36 years inside the care system. We are paid by the families and professionals we work for, never by a care home or agency — so the advice you receive is the advice we would give our own relatives.
Born from a need the system was not meeting
My Care Direction was founded after years of working alongside families making care decisions — and noticing, again and again, how alone they felt while making them. The system is complicated, the language is unfamiliar, and the people who most need guidance are usually the ones with the least time and energy to go looking for it.
Most families meet the care system properly for the first time at the worst possible moment: after a fall, during a hospital admission, or when a parent quietly stops coping. There is rarely one place to go for a straight answer, and almost never anyone whose only job is to be on your side.
The problem with advice that looks free
There is a great deal of care advice available at no cost to you. Much of it is paid for by somebody else. Care home directories, placement services and matching sites are commonly funded by commission from the providers they list, often a percentage of the first year of fees. That does not make those services dishonest, but it does mean their income depends on you choosing a provider from a particular list.
We do not take that money. We are paid a fixed fee by you, and only by you, which leaves us free to tell you that the home you have already found is a good one — or that you do not need to pay us at all.
What independence actually means in practice
Independence is easy to claim and harder to evidence. In practice it means we have no ownership of, financial interest in, or commercial agreement with any care home, nursing home, home care agency or care platform. We do not receive introduction fees and we do not pay them either. If we recommend a provider, it is because it fits the assessed need, the budget and the personal preferences we have discussed with you.
Nurse-led, not sales-led
Care decisions are clinical decisions as much as practical or financial ones. Whether somebody needs residential care or nursing care, whether a package of home care is realistically safe, whether cognitive change is being managed or simply tolerated — these are judgements that rest on clinical experience. That is why every assessment, review and written report we produce is completed by a registered nurse.
- Accept a referral fee or commission from a care home, agency or provider
- Recommend a service because it happens to pay us
- Sell you a paid service when a free conversation would have been enough
- Promise that NHS Continuing Healthcare funding will be awarded
- Use pressure, artificial deadlines or fear to secure a booking
- Pass your family information to providers without your permission
36 years inside the care system. Now on your side of the table.
You will not be passed between advisers or handed to a call centre. You speak to the person who does the work.
Registered nurse
Clinical training and registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, applied to every assessment and every report.
Assessment and case management
Years spent assessing need, writing care plans and managing complex cases across care and mental-health services.
Funding and CHC experience
Direct experience of NHS Continuing Healthcare checklists, full assessments, decisions and appeals.
Every side of the table
Provider side, clinical side and family side — which is why we know where families usually lose ground.
The experience that sits behind the advice
Thirty-six years is long enough to have seen the care system from the inside in several different roles: delivering care, assessing need, managing services, and sitting in the meetings where decisions about other people are actually made. It is also long enough to know that the same handful of problems come up over and over again — a discharge moving faster than a family can think, a funding route nobody mentioned, a placement chosen under pressure that turns out to be the wrong one.
Independent guidance is not about knowing secret information. It is about knowing which questions matter, which answers to challenge, and what good practice should look like when you are standing in a corridor being asked to decide something today.
Professional standing
- Registered nurse, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
- Specialist experience in dementia care and mental capacity considerations
- NHS Continuing Healthcare checklists, full assessments and appeals
- Independent care needs assessments and written reports for families, attorneys and deputies
- Care funding, means testing and benefits including Attendance Allowance
- Clear complaints, confidentiality and data protection procedures
Where My Care Direction fits
Knowing what a service is not is often more useful than knowing what it is.
Not a care agency
We do not employ carers or supply staff. We have nothing to fill, so we have no reason to steer you anywhere.
Not a paid-for directory
We are not a listings site funded by the providers on it. Shortlists are built around assessed need, not around who pays to appear.
Not a law firm or financial adviser
We do not provide FCA-regulated financial advice or reserved legal activities. Where those are needed we will say so and introduce you to a regulated professional.
Not a replacement for the NHS
Assessments and funding decisions are made by the NHS and local authorities. Our role is to make sure the evidence and the argument are as strong as they can be.
So what do we actually do
We work out what care is genuinely needed, explain what it is likely to cost and who may be responsible for paying, identify realistic options, and put the whole thing in writing so that a family can make a decision together rather than in a panic. Some families use us once, for a single conversation. Others use us across months, through a discharge, a placement and a funding challenge. Both are fine.
You can see everything we offer, and what each piece of work costs, on our services and prices page. If you are not sure which service fits, that is exactly what the free call is for.
Families first, and the professionals who act for them
Families and adult children
Most of the people we speak to are adult children trying to arrange care for a parent, often from a distance and usually while holding down a job. Some are spouses trying to keep a couple together for as long as possible. Some are older people planning ahead deliberately, before anybody has to make decisions on their behalf.
Attorneys and deputies
If you hold a lasting power of attorney or a deputyship, you are making decisions in somebody elses best interests and may need to show that those decisions were properly informed. An independent care needs assessment gives you a neutral, written basis for what you decide.
Solicitors and financial advisers
We produce independent care reports, care-cost evidence and assessments that can be placed on file, alongside later-life planning and Court of Protection work. There is more detail on our for professionals page.
Hospital and discharge teams
Where a family is struggling with the pace of a discharge, an independent explanation of the plan usually moves things forward faster than pressure does. Our hospital discharge support is built for exactly that situation.
- A parent has had a fall and is no longer safe at home
- The hospital has said a relative is medically fit for discharge
- Care home fees have started and nobody explained the funding rules
- A Continuing Healthcare assessment was refused and the reasons were unclear
- Dementia is progressing and the current arrangement is no longer working
- A family disagrees about what should happen next
- Care is being arranged from another part of the country, or from abroad
Local when you need us, national when you do not
In-person work is concentrated across East Sussex and the surrounding area. Advice, reviews and reports are available by telephone and video anywhere in the UK.
We visit homes and care settings across the coastal corridor from Seaford through Eastbourne to Hastings, and inland to Lewes, Uckfield, Hailsham, Crowborough and Tunbridge Wells. Care Guidance Calls, funding work, Continuing Healthcare reviews, second opinions and professional consultations are carried out remotely, so distance is rarely a reason not to get advice. Full detail is on our areas we cover page.
“Every family deserves somebody in their corner who is not selling them anything.”
Questions families ask about us
Are you a care agency or a care home placement service?
No. We do not employ carers, we do not own or run any care setting, and we are not paid by the providers we discuss with you. We are an independent consultancy paid by the family or professional who instructs us.
How are you paid, and do you take commission?
We are paid a fixed fee, agreed and quoted before any work begins. We do not accept commission, referral fees or introduction payments from care providers, and we do not pay them to anybody else either.
What qualifications does the adviser hold?
The service is led by a registered nurse with 36 years of experience across care, assessment, management and complex decision-making, registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Do you have to be local to help us?
No. Only visits and on-site assessments need us to be physically present. Guidance calls, funding entitlement work, Continuing Healthcare reviews and written reports are all carried out remotely.
Is there a charge for the first conversation?
No. The initial 20-minute care needs call is free and carries no obligation. Its purpose is to work out what is actually going on and whether any paid work would genuinely help.
Can you guarantee NHS Continuing Healthcare funding?
No, and you should be cautious of anybody who says they can. Eligibility decisions are made by the relevant NHS body. What we can do is review the evidence, give an honest written opinion on whether a case is worth pursuing, and help you put it properly. See our CHC funding page.
Do you give financial or legal advice?
We do not provide FCA-regulated financial advice or carry out reserved legal activities. We explain how care funding works and what the likely costs are, and where regulated advice is needed we will tell you and introduce you to somebody appropriate.
How quickly can you start?
Free calls are usually available within a few working days. Where a hospital discharge is under way we aim to respond within 48 hours, because that is normally the window in which decisions are being made.
What happens to the information we share with you?
It is treated confidentially and is not shared with care providers without your permission. Our privacy notice explains how information is stored and used.
Useful places to start
Services & prices
Every service and every fixed fee in one place.
NHS Continuing Healthcare
Should the NHS be paying for your relatives care?
Leaving hospital
Make a safe plan without being rushed into a decision.
How we help
Not sure what you need? Start from your situation instead.
You don’t need to know which service you need.
Just tell us what’s happening.
No pressure. No care-provider commissions. Just a conversation about what may help.