Employing carers privately versus agency?

[JasperC]

Hello all,

my Mum has MND and my sisters and I are trying to organise her care. It's a complicated situation as our Dad has dementia and can only be of limited help. Ideally we would provide this care ourselves, but my sisters have young families and I live abroad.

We have been using an agency for day care, and Mum really likes one of the carers and wants us to employ her privately as live-in care as her needs increase. There seem to be pros and cons of staying with an agency versus employing carers privately, so would be great to hear from other people's experiences.

Lots of questions (sorry!):

1. is it best for the carer to be registered as self-employed or to be employed by my parents?
2. what kind of insurance might we need if we employ her, and are there any recommended providers?
3. any idea of standard rates of pay for privately hired carer?
4. working schedules: one week on, one off?
5. how can we get training for her re equipment? (She can manage the PEG, but has never used hoists, etc.)

Thanks in advance,

jasper

[Bowler]

Hi Jasper, I’m pretty sure some on here have / are doing both and will be able to share their experiences. Have you thought about starting a thread under “ ask connect “ with your questions. The team are pretty good at answering or at least pointing you in the right direction

[Ellie]

Some basic questions, Jasper:

Is your mum receiving any funded care?
I presume the carer in question has been asked if she wants to be the live-in carer and is willing and able?
If you go down the private route, will you still use that current agency for when the private carer is off, on holiday, ill?

[Mary C]

Hi Jasper , if you google carers trust there is a lot of information on there that may answer many of these questions.
I think you would have to consider a back up plan if the personal carer went off sick or needs time off.
The carers association may be able to advise on training but unsure if that is extended to paid carers .
Hoist training was always an issue when I worked in a hospital as a social worker.(It’s finding somebody trained to deliver hoist training to the personal assistant and any other carer who covers days off and holidays.)

Hopefully others on here will have personal experience to share with you.
Best wishes
Mary

[JasperC]

Many thanks to you all for the useful advice. I'm still looking into things. It's complicated, but if we manage to find a good workable solution I'll post back here to report on how we got on. Thanks again!