Home Care in Wigan

Wigan has 46 CQC registered home care agencies. 24 are rated Good, 5 Outstanding, 2 Requires improvement, and 15 have not yet been rated. 26 of the 46 were last inspected more than three years ago.

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

Planning and paying for care at home in Wigan

Two questions decide the shape of everything else: how much help has been judged necessary, and where the money comes from. Both are answered through assessments that cost nothing, and getting them done first stops a search forming around the wrong size of package.

The care needs assessment

Anyone who appears to need care and support can ask for an assessment, whatever their capital and whatever they expect to be told. Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council is responsible for carrying it out. A practitioner works through washing, dressing, medication, meals, mobility, continence and any overnight need, then records how much support is required and how often. That record is what agencies should be quoting against, and it converts a general worry into a specific request.

How the council's contribution is decided

A separate financial assessment measures income and capital against the national threshold. Households above it generally meet the cost themselves, while those below receive a contribution on a sliding scale. Where the council does contribute, the support may be commissioned for you or taken as a direct payment. A direct payment keeps every agency on this list available to you, rather than only those already holding a contract, which matters when the ones you want are the better rated ones.

What moves the weekly figure

Support at home is priced against time, so the total depends on how long each visit lasts, how many fall in a day, and whether nights, weekends or two carers at once are needed. A single morning call is a modest commitment; four visits a day is a different matter entirely. Ask two or three agencies to quote in writing on an identical pattern of calls, and check how travel time, bank holiday rates and any minimum call length change the headline price.

Choosing a provider in Wigan and what to check

Making the most of an unusually good field

Six agencies rated Outstanding and twenty two rated Good gives you room to be selective. Read the Outstanding reports in particular and see what inspectors singled out, because it is often continuity, training or the way the agency responds to concerns rather than anything glamorous. The two providers at Requires Improvement are worth reading rather than discarding, since some findings concern records rather than care. Sixteen agencies carry no rating at all, generally following a recent registration, and there the manager's tenure and the agency's honesty about its coverage are the things to weigh.

Questions that reveal how an agency runs

Ask how many separate carers would visit over a fortnight and how that holds up through sickness and leave. Ask whether the agency has genuine capacity in your area at the times you need, since early mornings and evenings are the pinch points. Ask who rings when a call will be late and who answers on a Sunday. Ask to see a sample care plan, check whether it describes a person rather than a schedule of tasks, and ask how often it is reviewed.

Related searches

• Care Homes in Wigan
• Nursing Homes in Wigan

Home Care near Wigan

• Leigh
• Skelmersdale
• Newton-le-willows
• St Helens
• Bolton
• Chorley
• Warrington
• Ormskirk