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:

• Equipment for daily living
• Alterations - adapting your home to stay independent
• An emergency alarm or careline