Care in your own home: Domiciliary care
Personal care in your own home (known as home care services or domiciliary care) is usually provided by your council or by a specialist agency (organisation or private company) following a care needs assessment. There are clear advantages for those who want to stay in their own homes by having elderly care at home, however, there are also potential set backs that should be addressed. These include having a succession of different domiciliary care workers coming at different times, or, occasionally the domiciliary home care services might fail because of staffing pressures due to holidays, sickness, etc.
FirstStop Factsheet 6 : Care and Support at Home
Assessment for home care services
Currently, many local authorities do not provide domiciliary care or home care services unless your needs are assessed as high or critical. Where home care for the elderly is provided the council will usually apply a financial assessment (means-test) to determine whether you will pay some or all of the charges.
Increasingly, instead of the local authority providing home care services they will make direct payments so that people needing elderly care at home can choose and engage their own care workers, or use the available money in other ways to get home care services.
The main ways in which elderly people receive help at home are:
- Washing and dressing
- Getting up and going to bed
- Meal preparation and help with feeding
- Continence care
- Taking medication regularly
Other assistance in your own home
There are several other ways in which (following a needs assessment) the council can support you to stay in your own home, or you can make arrangements independently, for example:
To discuss your own circumstances and needs for domiciliary care, home care or nursing care at home call the FirstStop Advice Line on 0800 377 70 70 (open Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 5pm) or request a call back at a time that suits you.