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CHOOSING CARE · LIVE-IN CARE OR A CARE HOME?
Live-in care or a care home? The honest comparison, with the costs people forget
Live-in care sounds like the obvious answer – stay at home, one-to-one, no institution. Sometimes it is. It is also often more expensive than families expect, needs a spare room and a plan for the carer’s breaks, and stops working when two carers or night nursing are needed. Here is how we compare them, and a calculator that does it on your figures.
The house is never countedFor care in your own home the property is disregarded in the means test. That can be the deciding factor.
One carer has limitsA live-in carer works alone, needs a two-hour break daily and two weeks off in ten. Two-carer tasks need a second agency.
Introductory or managed?Introductory agencies are cheaper and leave you the employer. Managed (CQC-registered) agencies cost more and carry the risk.
CALCULATOR
Compare on your own figures
Live-in care or a care home – what does each really cost?
Enter the figures you have been quoted. The calculator adds the costs people forget – food, utilities, the second carer, respite cover – and shows the weekly and annual picture side by side.
HOW TO DECIDE
The six questions we ask before recommending either
- Does the person want to stay at home – and do they understand what a stranger living in means?
- Is there a spare bedroom and a working kitchen and bathroom the carer can use?
- Are any tasks two-person: transfers, hoisting, turning at night?
- Are nights disturbed? A live-in carer who is up three times a night is not safe by day.
- Who covers the daily break, sickness and the carer’s leave – and what does that cost?
- Does the property matter for funding? Home care never counts it; a permanent care home placement may.
Where each one winsLive-in: a person with capacity who wants to stay put, a house that suits it, needs that one carer can meet, and a property that would otherwise pay for care. Care home: two-carer needs, night nursing, advanced dementia with wandering, or a house that cannot be adapted. Both: nobody should decide without a written needs assessment.
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