Home Care in St. Helens

St. Helens has 41 CQC registered home care agencies. 26 are rated Good, 3 Requires improvement, 1 Inadequate, and 11 have not yet been rated. 24 of the 41 were last inspected more than three years ago.

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

Choosing a home care agency in St. Helens and what to look for

Support at home arrives as a series of visits rather than a single decision, and the quality of those visits depends on things a website cannot show you: who turns up, whether it is the same person each time, and what happens when that person is unwell. Those are the questions to press on.

What the ratings cover

The Care Quality Commission inspects agencies on five questions, asking whether the service is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led, and the overall rating summarises those judgements. In St. Helens twenty six agencies are rated Good and three sit at Requires Improvement. Twelve have no rating yet, which usually means they registered recently rather than that anything is wrong, though it does leave a family with less published evidence to weigh. Where an agency has been rated, check the date, because the care sector sees enough change in management for an older report to describe a different organisation.

The questions that matter most

Ask how many different carers would visit in a typical fortnight, and whether the agency can promise continuity or simply aims at it. Ask what happens when a visit is running late and how families are told, and what the arrangement is at weekends and over bank holidays. Ask how staff are trained for the specific needs involved, whether that is dementia, moving and handling or medication support. Find out how the agency handles a complaint, and ask to see the written care plan it would draw up before any visits begin.

Arranging support in St. Helens and understanding the cost

The care needs assessment

Anyone who appears to need care and support can request an assessment, whatever their savings, and for home care it is often the quickest route to getting something organised. The assessment considers washing, dressing, meals, mobility, medication, safety around the house and how much a relative is already doing, and it produces a written record of what is needed. Requests go to St. Helens Metropolitan Borough Council, which is responsible for adult social care assessments and for arranging funded support in the borough. A relative providing unpaid care can ask for a carer's assessment of their own at the same time.

Fees, means testing and what to check

A financial assessment follows, looking at income and savings, though the value of a home someone still lives in is not counted when care is being provided there. Above the capital threshold a person pays for their own care; below it the council contributes according to the assessment, sometimes through a direct payment that lets the family choose the agency themselves. Agencies set their own hourly rates, so costs differ across St. Helens depending on the length of each visit, the time of day and whether two carers are needed. Ask for the rate in writing, including what is charged at weekends and overnight, what the minimum visit length is and how much notice is required to change or cancel a call. Ask as well whether travel time between visits is billed, since that varies from one agency to another.

Related searches

• Care Homes in St. Helens
• Nursing Homes in St. Helens

Home Care near St. Helens

• Prescot
• Newton-le-willows
• Widnes
• Warrington
• Skelmersdale
• Wigan
• Liverpool
• Runcorn
• Leigh