Is it ever financially feasible to have them live with you and pay for a live in carer to help?

[Purplturpl]

Just pondering our future plans for elderly parents. I have plenty room in the house so could provide a room for a live in carer and also a downstairs room for elderly parents with downstairs bathroom/wetroom.

does anyone know what the costs are for full time live in carer?

at the moment I have df with deteriorating mobility but good memory and dm with deteriorating memory but good mobility. Both would be so resistant to residential care

This is an interesting article on the subject..
https://myhometouch.com/cost-of-live-in-care

I think the challenges include working out what 24/7 care looks like.. is this 3 shifts of 8 hours each for three people plus 2x12 shifts at the weekend or some sort of 3 on 4 off shift system.. with holiday cover..
And then, what other costs would be involved, utilities, providing food, training, taxis for trips out, materials for activities etc. and for how long.. you could consider buying a care annuity plan... or putting your parents money aside for this.

At some stage, your parents might need more specialist nursing care, or they might not... it is not easy to predict.

I think that having an open conversation with your partner / children or a friend, if it's just you.. to consider what you would be willing to offer in terms of space in your house and space in your life.... and then an open conversation with your parents.. what would they want, what factors would change that... how much would it cost.. how much have they got..

Thank you that’s interesting

Jeremy vine the other morning said he had a 24 hour carer for a relative (presume his mother but he didn't say but has said in the past about her being frail or in hospital).........£7,000 per month😮

Live in care without needing 24hr hour is roughly the same as care home, with extra costs for running the home.

Typically live in carers work one week on one week off and they are entitled to a certain amount of hours off during the day so there needs to be cover for the hours they don't work.

It rarely works out cheaper than residential care and only works if there are sufficient cash savings and income to pay for it.

The local authority will not take over funding if the money runs out and will insist on a care home.

In my job I only ever see when it goes wrong so perhaps I definitely have a bias against it but in my experience it often causes more issues than it solves and is only genuinely feasible if money is no object.

To be fair, a decent care home is around £2K a week if you’re self funding.

Yes care home are pretty expensive already . I would expect a live in carer to be more expensive an option. But just wondered if perhaps not too much more. And more thinking about the fact it might be a nicer kind of care.

My FIL had a live in carer. She didn’t have holidays or much time off either as I remember. She left after a few months as he hated it and became increasingly rude to her. I don’t know how expensive it was but very expensive! I know someone else who has her mother living with her and there are carers coming in four times a day .

I looked at it last year. If you need 24 hour coverage it was notably more expensive than a care home so we abandoned it as an option.

It depends where you live and if you go through an agency. You can employ direct from £500 a week. Some work week on week off but others just work all the time. Can work but like any relationship can be tricky. In the Midlands a nice care home will cost about £1500 a week. If a nursing home add £200 but he should qualify for financial help to cover this. It is called funded nursing care and is none means tested. It depends how much you can help if things go wrong such as the carer is on leave or is sick.

Honestly OP I would advise against it unless you will have POA to ensure the care does not stop because, well, you’re there and could do it and they don’t really want a stranger doing it/being paid for it/ stealing from them/ moving the ornaments etc My PIL are next door (not attached) and that’s quite close enough. They often wander at night- slamming doors, rattling furniture, ‘cooking’ and setting off smoke alarms, deciding to run the washing machine at 2am etc however ‘nice’ they are now it will not always be this way. Think very, very carefully OP before taking this on.

Thanks. I think I need this to be said. I know this is true. I just know the guilt feeling is going to be so hard

Someone once had 2 live in carers with a room each living with both their parents. As they provided accommodation then they didn't have to pay minimum wage. Same with a live in nanny.

I'm not sure how much care the parents needed.

The guilt is immense, it’s much like having a baby- whatever you do someone will say you’re wrong, and those with the strongest opinions tend to have zero experience of their own and are pontificating about how they like to think they will do it when their time comes.

How far away are they now OP? Be honest with yourself about how much of your life you are actually willing to give to their care. The closer they are the harder it becomes to ever be ‘off-duty’. None else even tries if you’re the closest and they will ‘pop in’ as and when it suits them, regardless of what they’ve promised.

We looked at this for my grandfather about 15 years ago - we needed a night carer to relieve my grandmother. Costs were about £50k/year for the night carer, £35k/year for a home.

A colleague's father had a live in carer recently. The carers rotated, one week on, one week off. They only worked during the day, and had a 2 hour break in the afternoon. My colleague's father was physically frail, but mentally alert, so could understand that they were going, and when they would be back. You might need to buy additional care (e.g. a carer coming in) if your parents couldn't be left at all.

I understand that no care at night would allow for helping once in the middle of the night, but not more than that - my grandfather needed repeated attention during the night, hence needing a night carer.

A relative just paid £2k per week for 2 weeks cover (4k total)
Plus the usual paid for carers came in during the day - to cover essential breaks.

It depends on their level of need. My Aunties friend lived alone and had a carer come each morning to help her get up, showered, dressed and breakfast and she'd make her a flask of coffee that you just pushed the top down and it came out. Another carer came and helped her prepare for bed. There were 4 in all but they rotated around. In the daytime she could potter about on her own. She had a cleaner who came 3 times a week who would also make her a sandwich or soup for lunch. A gardener came once a week who would also make her a pot of tea. Her DD came twice a week and her DS once a week to visit her and they would leave a sandwich and little slice of cake for her. She had her lunch delivered each day by a local pub. She was frail but able to go to the loo unaided and walk around from room to room and answer the door. In the summer she'd sit in her garden and watch the birds. She got along quite well like this for about 4-5 years before she went into a care home at almost 90. No idea how much it cost but she was quite well off.

£500 / week will not get you 24/7 cover. Also, while you can include a daily offset rate of £10.66 if you provide accommodation, you still need to consider minimum wage.

It can be useful to consider the whole range of care - from where you are now, until a point when one or both of your parents requires care outside of your or their home. It is not straightforward to look at percentages and probabilities - but it can be helpful to consider what proportion of people never require residential care. Something like 50% of people aged 75 and older, die in hospital, 25% at home and 25% in care homes and 40% of those in care homes were temporary residents. .... so what does care look like for those who were at home or were at home before they were hospitalised? It is a combination of independence, carers coming in a few times a day, family support and live in care. However you approach this, I think it is important to be open to considering that any solution needs to be under review and be open to making changes if it is not working for you or for your parents.

Read the stories of other families .. and consider reading this book: atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal: Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows that the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life – all the way to the very end.

assuming your parents live together - one physically frail and one a bit forgetful can cope quite well. I think it would be a mistake to “ move them in” with you in any kind of rush. If you think they need help then suggest eg a cleaner or if money is tight a social services assessment. Do they stay with you for “ holidays “ ? If they stay for a week and you are glad/ exhausted when they go home then clearly it’s never going to work long term. It’s so difficult to predict what will happen in the future.Encourage them to get LPA ( for health and financial) sorted while they are still have the mental capacity to do this what ever you decide about them moving in.

They live close by so don’t stay with me for holidays. Yes they sort of cope just now as one is more physically capable and the other more mentally capable. So it sort of balances out between them. But I think we will be approaching a period of further deterioration. I guess we will just have to see how things go.

In the kindest way @Purplturpl if I were to move mother or MIL to live with me, in a short while they would be in a nursing home. I would become very low maintenance, probably in Holloway Prison.

Would it be a nicer type of care? Maybe, maybe not.

More familiar surroundings than a care home (at the point of moving), but likely to be a less well adapted building and with less equipment available. And without the activities, outings, regular visiting hairdressers, chiropodists, GPs etc. You'd need to arrange all that separately.

The possibility of a better personal relationship with the carer - if comparing with a home that has high staff turnover or uses a lot of agency staff. But not all homes do. And harder/slower to switch if you do have a personality clash or falling out.

If the parent with lower mobility gets to the stage of needing lifting in and out of chairs, beds, baths etc, you will probably need 2 live in carers. And that's very expensive indeed.

Every person I know who moved their patents in for more than a couple of months regretted it. I'm sure there are people who don't but I'm 66 and I've not met any of them in real life.

Live in care is about £1000 pw. However, it is only suitable if the looked after person doesn't need nighttime care. If you need a care worker to be awake through the night you would have to add that in and the costs would more than double.

Why couldn't your parents stay in their home with a live in care worker?

Please don't underestimate the stress of having your parents plus a stranger living in your home.