Home Care in Barnet

Barnet has 100 CQC registered home care agencies. 61 are rated Good, 1 Outstanding, 4 Requires improvement, and 34 have not yet been rated. 49 of the 100 were last inspected more than three years ago.

Source: Care Quality Commission register, kept up to date as ratings change.

Arranging care at home in Barnet and paying for it

The care needs assessment

Any adult who appears to need help at home is entitled to ask for a care needs assessment, and it is free regardless of savings. The assessor works through an ordinary day rather than a medical history, covering washing, dressing, preparing meals, taking medication, moving about indoors and coping alone overnight. What comes out of it is a written record of eligible needs, which becomes the basis for everything that follows. Requests are made to London Borough of Barnet adult social care, and a relative providing regular unpaid support can ask for a carer's assessment of their own.

How support is funded

Having eligible needs and qualifying for funding are decided separately. A financial assessment considers income, savings and capital, and the outcome determines whether the council pays in full, shares the cost, or treats the person as a self funder. Where the council does contribute, a direct payment allows the household to choose its own agency from this listing and set the visit times, rather than accepting a commissioned package. Anyone funding their own care can still ask the council for information and advice about arranging it.

Getting to a realistic weekly figure

Home care is charged by the hour or by the visit, so the weekly cost comes from how often carers attend and how long they stay rather than from the advertised rate. Minimum call lengths, travel charges and weekend or bank holiday uplifts can pull two apparently similar quotes a long way apart. Ask for the whole rate card in writing and check how much notice is needed to cancel or move a visit, since short notice charges catch families out during hospital stays. Live in support is quoted weekly, so compare it against the full cost of several daily calls rather than an hourly rate.

Choosing the right provider and what to look for

When many agencies have no rating

Every agency listed holds registration with the Care Quality Commission, but a substantial number here have not yet been inspected and so carry no rating. That usually reflects recent registration rather than any concern, though it does mean there is no independent account of how the service performs. Where a rating does exist, it combines five judgements covering safety, effectiveness, care, responsiveness and leadership, so a provider rated Good may still be weaker in the area you care about most. Check the inspection date too, because an older report describes a service that may since have changed hands.

The questions that do the work

With an unrated agency, your own questions become the evidence, so ask them properly. Find out how long the agency has operated, who registered it, and whether the manager has run a service before. Ask how many different carers would visit across a fortnight, whether rotas arrive in advance, what counts as a late call and who telephones when one happens. Ask to see a blank care plan and the complaints procedure, and ask for the names of two families willing to speak to you.

Checking the practical fit

Confirm the agency genuinely covers your street rather than the borough in general, and that it can staff the hours you need rather than the hours it has spare. Where moving and handling equipment, dementia experience or double handed visits are required, ask directly whether trained staff are available.

Related searches

• Care Homes in Barnet
• Nursing Homes in Barnet

Home Care near Barnet

• Potters Bar
• Borehamwood
• Edgware
• Stanmore
• Enfield
• Hatfield
• Harrow
• Waltham Cross
• Wembley
• St Albans