Guide

Home care or a care home: which is right?

How to weigh staying at home with support against moving into a care home, honestly.

For many families the first real decision is not *which* care home, but whether a care home is needed at all. Both staying at home with support and moving into a home can work well. The right answer depends on needs, on risk, on money, and on what the person actually wants.

What home care can do

A domiciliary care agency sends carers to a person's own home. That can be a single visit a day to help with washing and medication, several visits a day, or in some cases live-in care. Its great strength is continuity: the person stays in familiar surroundings, keeps their routines, their neighbours and their independence, and a daily visit is often far cheaper than a residential place. You can find rated agencies under home care.

Where home care struggles

Home care relies on carers turning up, on time, every time. Before you commit, ask the agency directly about missed and late calls, and whether you get the same few carers or a rotating cast of strangers. Home care also gets expensive as needs rise: once someone needs several long visits a day, or care through the night, the weekly cost can approach that of a care home, without the company and round-the-clock presence a home provides.

When a care home makes more sense

A care home tends to be the better choice when:

needs are high enough to require support during the night;
the person is unsafe living alone, for example with falls, wandering, or leaving the gas on;
loneliness is doing real damage, which is more common, and more serious, than people admit;
a family carer is exhausted and close to breaking down themselves;
the cost of enough home visits would rival the cost of a home anyway.

The thing people underestimate

Two factors get too little weight in these decisions. The first is loneliness: isolation is a genuine health risk, and some people are noticeably happier and healthier in a good home than they were managing alone. The second is the carer's own health. Caring for a parent or partner around the clock is unsustainable for most people, and running yourself into the ground helps no one.

Whatever you choose, check it first

Both agencies and homes are inspected by the CQC. Whichever route you lean towards, look up the service on InspectedCare, read its rating and the history behind it, and visit or meet the team before you commit. If you are leaning towards a home, our guide on how to choose a care home takes you through the rest of the process.

More guides

This guide is general information from InspectedCare, an independent site. It is not advice. For the official record of any service, see cqc.org.uk.