Home Care in Surrey

Surrey has 291 CQC registered home care agencies. 177 are rated Good, 15 Outstanding, 13 Requires improvement, 2 Inadequate, and 84 have not yet been rated. 151 of the 291 were last inspected more than three years ago.

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

Setting up care at home in Surrey and paying for it

Asking for a care needs assessment

The paperwork tends to move faster once the need has been written down by somebody official. Any adult who appears to require care and support can ask for an assessment, and no charge is made for it whatever the savings or income. The assessor works through washing, dressing, meals, medication, moving safely about the house and the hours of the day when help is worth most. What emerges is a written statement of eligible needs that shapes the care plan. Surrey County Council carries out these assessments and arranges funded support for those who qualify, and a relative can make the request on somebody else's behalf.

The cost of visiting care

Home care is priced by the hour or by the call, so the total follows the support delivered rather than sitting as a fixed weekly charge. Rates vary between the agencies listed here and generally climb for nights, weekends, bank holidays and any call needing two carers. A financial assessment runs alongside the needs assessment, comparing income and capital against national limits to fix the personal contribution. Families who pay privately can approach agencies directly, while those with a personal budget may take a direct payment and choose their own provider. Where the underlying need is medical rather than social, NHS continuing healthcare is worth raising with the district nursing team.

Judging one Surrey agency against another

Where the ratings help

Two of the two hundred and eighty three agencies here, Home Instead Senior Care and Welmede Housing Association, hold an Outstanding rating. Good is the most common outcome by a wide margin and covers providers such as Allium Homecare, Tendacare and Boyce Care. A handful, including Winsor Care Services and Catto Homecare, are currently rated Requires Improvement, and their reports set out precisely why. Roughly one agency in five carries no rating at all, which normally points to a recent registration rather than to any finding against the service.

The questions that reveal the most

Ask how many separate carers will come in a fortnight, because a settled team makes far more difference to daily life than a glossy brochure. Establish how long a call actually lasts after travel, who covers holidays and sickness, and how the office communicates a delay. Ask what training staff have for the particular needs in question, from dementia and hoisting through to continence and medication prompting. Request the registered manager by name and ask how complaints are logged, then compare those answers against the most recent report.

Cutting the list down

Distance does a good deal of the sorting, since an office near the address can hold to tighter call times across a busy morning round. Beyond that, weigh flexibility over time, honesty about what the agency cannot cover, and the clarity of the written terms. Two or three conversations will usually settle it, particularly if you ask each agency the same set of questions and note how directly they answer. Where an agency has no rating yet, ask whether it can put you in touch with a family already using the service, since a candid account of the first month is worth a great deal.

Local care news in Surrey

• New 30 bed care home registered with CQC in Waverley: Bridge House Care Home (5 November 2026)
• CQC register adds a new care home in Waverley: Cedar Court Care Home (5 November 2026)

More local care news for Surrey

Related searches

• Care Homes in Surrey
• Nursing Homes in Surrey

Home Care near Surrey

• Leatherhead
• Epsom
• Chessington
• Surbiton
• Worcester Park
• Walton-on-Thames
• New Malden
• Sutton
• Kingston Upon Thames
• Weybridge