Care agencies

[littlebillie]

How to pick a care agency? Any thoughts on how to choose one?

If you go via the local authority they will do a needs assessment and then can ask for a list of the agencies they use. They won't be able to recommend from the list but you can use as a starting point. The problem is finding an agency which can meet your request eg you might need a double team, visits before 10am and after 7pm are hard. Plus if you book for an hour's visit you tend to get fifty minutes as the carers will have another client to visit immediately after.

Agree with PP.
Work out exactly what you need first, then look for agencies that can get the closest.
We chose an agency to come evenings to put my elderly father to bed. It was a different person every day so no one ever got into a routine, and they could not guarantee a time slot so sometimes it was 7.30pm, sometimes 9.30pm. Did not work at all for us...

Are you looking for 24 hr live-in care? If you are, look at The Lady magazine. That's where carers advertise their services and you can also place advertisements yourself.

I used several for my parents:

Two I got from the social services list they gave us 3 x daily visits. Both were good in their own ways. 1 was quite expensive and used a lot of very young carers; the second was much smaller, cheaper and uses much older carers. Worked much better for us.

The third I found on the internet - brilliant organisation offering a portal for self employed carers. Really useful for finding an affordable live in carer, and they do hourly rates too, if you live locally to one of their carers. (The organisation collects references, DRBs etc, but the carers are self employed and set their own rates of pay.)

Four, I had recommended by someone I met on a bus for short daily visits, (to give the live in carer a break.) They are larger, so more impersonal - different carers each time - but quite a lot cheaper.

If it is short care visits you are looking for