What Is Home Care?

When someone you love begins to need a little more support, the question families ask is rarely about services. It is usually simpler, and harder, than that: how do we help them carry on living the life they want, in the place they feel most themselves?

Home care is the answer for many families. Also known as care at home or domiciliary care, home care is regulated care and support delivered in a person's own home by trained Carers, rather than in a care home or hospital. It can be as light-touch as an hour of companionship a week, or as comprehensive as a Carer living in the home full time.

This guide explains what home care involves, how it differs from a care home, what services are available, how it is regulated, what it costs, and how to arrange it.

In practice, home care means a Carer visiting your loved one's home at agreed times to provide the support set out in their care plan.

That plan is written with your loved one’s healthcare needs in mind, considering what matters most to them and how they want to live. It records what they need help with, how they like things done, what they can still manage independently, and what a good day looks like for them. It is reviewed regularly and changed as needs change.

A typical visit might include:

• Help with washing, dressing and personal care
• Support with medication
• Preparing meals and drinks, and encouraging good nutrition and hydration
• Help with moving around the home safely
• Light housekeeping and laundry
• Company, conversation and support to get out and about
• Checking in on general wellbeing and flagging any changes

Visits can be arranged once a week or several times a day, at the times that suit your loved one's routine rather than according to a rota. Support can also continue overnight, or around the clock where that is what someone needs.

Home care does not confine anyone to their four walls. A good Carer supports the whole life someone leads — the trip to the garden centre, the Sunday visit to family, the walk to the local café. Essentially, this type of support is not just about tasks inside the house.

Home care is most often associated with older people, and that remains the largest group. But the range is broader than many families expect.

Home care may be the right support for:

• Older people who are managing well overall but need help with particular tasks
• People living with dementia, where familiar surroundings and a consistent Carer make a real difference to comfort and confidence
• People with long-term conditions such as Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease or stroke
• People with physical disabilities or sensory impairments, at any age
• Adults recovering after a hospital stay, an operation or a fall
• Younger adults who want to live independently with the right support in place
• People approaching the end of life who wish to remain at home
• Family carers who need a break, or need support alongside the care they provide

There is no minimum level of need. Home care is just as valid for someone who wants an hour of company each week as it is for someone requiring nurse-led support several times a day. Starting earlier and lighter often works better than waiting for a crisis, because it gives everyone time to build trust.

Yes. Any provider delivering personal care in someone's home must be registered with, and inspected by, the regulator for their nation:

• England — the Care Quality Commission (CQC)
• Wales — Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW)
• Scotland — the Care Inspectorate
• Northern Ireland — Regulation & Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA)

Regulators check that a provider is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. They review staff training and recruitment, medication practice, care planning, safeguarding and how a provider responds when things go wrong. Inspection reports are published in full and are free to read, so you can see exactly how a provider has performed before you contact them.

Two points are worth knowing when you compare providers.

First, regulation applies to personal care. A service offering only companionship or housekeeping may not need to register. That does not make it a poor service, but it does mean no regulator has inspected it.

Second, there is an important difference between a fully managed provider and an introductory agency. An introductory agency matches you with a self-employed carer and steps back; you may become responsible for their pay, cover and supervision. A fully managed provider employs its Carers directly, arranges cover, supervises quality and carries responsibility for the care delivered. Ask which model you are being offered before you compare hourly rates, because the rates are not comparing the same thing.

Home care is usually charged by the hour, or by the day for live-in care. Across the UK, hourly home care typically costs between £26 and £45 an hour, though rates can rise higher depending on location, the level of support needed and the time of day. 

The Homecare Association — the sector's membership body — sets a minimum sustainable price for England of £34.42 an hour for 2026/27, which reflects what it costs to pay Carers fairly and run a compliant service.

What affects the price:

• The length and frequency of visits
• Whether specialist or nurse-led support is required
• Whether two Carers are needed for safe moving and handling
• Evenings, weekends and bank holidays
• Where you live

When you compare quotes, check what is included. Ask whether travel time is charged separately, whether there is a minimum visit length, and whether supervision and quality checks are part of the rate or billed on top. A rate that looks noticeably low is usually carrying a cost somewhere else.

Home care is not always self-funded. Depending on circumstances, families may be able to draw on:

• Local authority funding. Your council will carry out a care needs assessment, followed by a financial assessment. In England, savings and capital above £23,250 mean funding your own care, while below £14,250 only income is taken into account. Remember that the value of the home is not counted for home care.
• Direct payments. If your loved one is eligible for council funding, they can take it as a direct payment and choose their own provider rather than accepting the council's arrangement.
• NHS Continuing Healthcare. Where someone has a primary health need, the NHS may fund the full package of care. This is not means-tested.
• Attendance Allowance or Personal Independence Payment. Neither is means-tested, and both can be put towards care.
• National variations. In Wales, the amount a local authority can charge for care at home is capped at £100 a week. In Scotland, personal care is free for adults assessed as needing it, though other elements of support may still be charged for.

A free care needs assessment from your local council is the right first step for almost every family, whatever their financial position.

At Right at Home, we built our service around a straightforward belief: care at home should feel like care, not a schedule.

Every one of our local offices is owned and run by people who live in the community they serve, backed by national standards and a fully regulated framework. Our Carers are employed directly by us — never agency staff — recruited for their values as much as their experience, enhanced DBS checked, and supported with ongoing training and real career progression.

We keep our Carer teams small and consistent, so your loved one sees familiar faces rather than a rotating list of names. We match Carers on personality as well as need, because the relationship matters as much as the task. And our visits are unrushed, with a preferred minimum of one hour, because dignity takes time.

Families have secure access to a real-time digital care plan, so you can see what happened at each visit wherever you are. And when you call, you reach your local office and a team who knows your loved one by name — never a call centre.