Hi,
I would like to ask an advice and to share yr experience with live in carers in UK.
Where do you get good live in carers?
How much do you pay them?
I know they should rotate -2 weeks on 2 weeks on, but what to do so i dont need to change them all the time.
Many thanks.
Looking forward to read some of your answers! I am afraid I don't know. But would be interested in finding out.
Lots of love
Heady
My son works for a care company, live in careers live in for 6-8 weeks, then they are away for 3 weeks then you get someone for 3 weeks, they have to have 2 hours off per day, and they have to get up maximum twice a night, if they hear the person they are caring for. They can either eat with you our they get an allowance of 35.00 per week. I think they also do a bit of house work, and cooking if you are out for the day. Yvonnexxxxx
What area does your son live in
We are in Hertfordshire xxx
Try google "live in care UK" first company up is Agicare, then some others. Costs from £650 per week. This sounds competitive with care home and also may be way of keeping patient at home, they cover dementia and Parkinson's as well as end of life palliative care. Sounds too good to be true. Thanks for making me search given me an idea, as nursing homes round here full with waiting lists over 20. Will have to try and get some referrences.
Best wishes Tim
Hi, both my wife and I used to work for County Cousins in the UK, never together, only one Carer is needed,this involved living in and caring for a single patient and sometimes couples. We would do everything that was needed to enable living in their own homes. Cooking meals, washing, showering, dressing, shopping, trips out. Two weeks on duty two weeks off. I even went on a cruise with an elderly man.
A room for the Carer is required, food and travel expensives and a fixed wage with a fee to County Cousins for introducing the Carer who would have been vetted.
My wife now has CBD and my training and experience now comes in very handy. I don't know the current wage, it depends on the amount and seriousness of the illness. Neither of us came across PSP. We dealt with blindness, Parkinsons, Motor Nuron and a whole range of other illnesses and complecations.
country-cousins.co.uk/get-t...
Best wishes
I am in the USA and have found that the best way to find good live in care at the best price is from recommendations through others with good live in care and from the caregivers themselves. If you can hire someone privately, rather than through an agency, it's much less expensive.
Hi,
The 1st symptom of my wife's psp was 2004 and she was finally diagnosed 2011. I looked after her until I needed an operation and I had to employ live in carers to cover in 2014. Recovery took longer than expected and I realised just how much I had been doing and that almost regardless of cost I felt I had little choice but to keep the live in carers on.
I believe you can employ carers direct and this will certainly be cheaper but I believe you may need to get help with the employment e.g. tax etc.
In my case I chose a care company( Helping Hands) for the following reasons:
_They take all the employment hassle away
_they guarantee that they will always provide a carer so you don't suddenly find yourself without
_You can change carer without hassle
All of the carers they have supplied have been pretty good but with a complicated illness like psp I found there are massive benefits in continuity of carer so you really dont want a new carer every few weeks
I really fell on my feet and have 2 excellent ladies who work back to back in approx 5 week shifts.(They sorted this out between themselves it was not "arranged" by the care company)
This works really well as they know exactly what to do and actually stay in touch and stay completely up to date with every little change in my wife's condition and hence changes in the care needed to cover those changes. After 5 weeks they also come back refreshed.These ladies are now much more than just carers and have become friends, are part of the family and my wife loves them.
From the care point of view this has worked really well. The ladies do everything and whilst my life is far from normal (no one whose spouse suffers from this horrendous disease can ever expect that luxury) I read this web site and frankly I just don't know how some of you cope almost on your own.
That is the plus side. There is one big negative. The cost is eye watering. The care company charge £900 + per week and don't think that is where it ends. Bank hols are double and some other days are one and a half times.Further, by law the ladies have to have breaks of 14 hours a week. This is fine if the patient can be left unattended for 2 hours at as time. Of course with psp, this is unlikely so you need to employ hourly carers to cover or do it yourself .I and family cover some of the time But if you need to employ hourly carers the hourly rates are around £20 so it soon mounts up.
Tot this all up and i reckon a realistic total cost is in £60,000pa bracket and you cannot even offset this against your taxes in the uk. So unless you are a lottery winner you are gambling on getting Continuing health care from the NHS before your savings run out so this is not for the faint hearted.
As someone has said' live in carers understandably cannot be expected to operate without adequate sleep & I understand that they need further cover if the patient regularly requires the carer to perform formal care tasks more than twice in the night .Fortunately, we seem some way from that at the moment. If that stage is reached then I guess that cover is going to have to be me. I have no idea what an additional night carer costs.
Hope this helps
I'm not sure where you're living, but in London I have had good luck with a service called myhometouch.com They connect you with a local, vetted carer that you choose and negotiate fees directly. They don't yet seem to serve the rest of the UK. Good luck with find a carer.
Caring for the carers
Carers allowance
