Finding care for yourself or a loved one can be one of the most stressful and difficult times to go through. There are so many options out there ranging from visiting care to live-in care to full on 24-hour care.
A common question is “What care option is best for me, visiting, live-in care or 24-hour care?”
So, what is the difference?
Visiting Care
This type of care is when a carer visits you in your own home at set times throughout the day for an agreed amount of time. It helps people to be independent and live their life how they wish, whilst enabling people to live in their own homes, amongst their own furniture and belongings, with their family and pets but receive help to do so.
Visiting care is suitable for people who are not yet ready for live-in care. The types of tasks carried out can be personal care, housework based, cooking and meal planning, medical support or companion care. The care can be delivered by a single carer or two carers at the same time depending on what tasks are required. It can be cost effective as only the hours that the carers work are paid for, however if used for long hours throughout the day it can prove to be more cost effective to have live-in care.
Live-in Care
Live-in care is when a carer lives with you in your own home to provide flexible care throughout the day at times that suit your routines, taking into account your preferred lifestyle. Live-in care is also a popular alternative to care homes for people who have long-term health needs, this means no disruption or upheaval of moving home.
Live-in care enables people to be independent and live how they wish to. The carer would be living with you and therefore does not frequently change meaning a rapport can be built between yourself and the carer. Also, if extra care is needed, a carer is already there, in the home, to help.
The carer also has time to attend to the small but important details of care that can make all the difference to clients. Live-in care is a more economical option to care homes if couples are both receiving care.
24-Hour Care
With 24-hour care, two carers work 12 hours each. Sometimes the number of carers is increased to work shorter periods to keep them at their maximum level of alertness. There is no sleeping break given to a carer during a 12-hour visit. However, you can allow the overnight carer to sleep if you choose to.
24-hour care is normally billed at an hourly rate and the overnight visit at a flat rate, if it is a sleeping visit and hourly rate if it is a non-sleeping visit. The benefit of having 24-hour home care is that a carer will be with you at all times and will be awake even throughout the night. A downside to 24-hour care is that the cost is higher due to it being billed at an hourly rate.
Live-in care roughly works out to be half the cost of 24-hour care, so 24-hour home care is the more expensive alternative of the three. Also, this option has less consistency in carers so this might not be a good option for you if you like continuity.
At Access Care we offer flexible live-in care packages to suit a variety of needs, but if that’s not what your after, we can point you in the right direction. Please call us on 01264 319399 and we will be delighted to help you arrange live-in care. Alternatively you can email us on hello@access-care.co.uk to tell us your story.
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