live-in care
live-in care
A live-in carer lives with you in your own home and allows you, or your loved one, to stay in the place you know best, for as long as you want.
Live-in care provides a tailored level of one-to-one support and can be used when staying in your own home has become a little too much for you, is no longer safe, or you are simply looking for some companionship and some extra support. Live-in carers are usually on hand to help from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed and typically work 7 days a week. As individuals’ live-in carers can be as pro-active or as discrete as you want them to be.
It can be a cost-effective alternative to a residential or care home and allows you to retain control over your way of life, enabling you to stay in familiar and relaxed surroundings, surrounded by your friends, family, and pets, continuing to follow your own routines, and choosing to do and eat the things you enjoy. The live in carer can give you the support you need when you need it. The support provided can often allow you to continue pursuing your hobbies, going out to places of interest and allow you to visit friends.
Who is Live-in Care for?
-
The care provided by the carers is tailored to your specific needs and can range from companionship and general help in getting on with life to situations where a significant amount of highly specialised care is required.
-
Live-in care is for any adult looking for cost effective support to achieve a higher quality of life. This is usually a person of mature age, but not necessarily somebody who has a health need. Joyful Care live-in carers also help young adults with either learning or physical disabilities.
Live-in carers can help where:
-
A little extra help is needed with everyday tasks throughout the day and/or reassurance is needed at night.
-
Significant help is required during the day, but the nights are usually quiet.
-
Full 24/7 care is needed – in this case two live-in carers work both day and night shifts to give care around the clock.
-
Short-term respite care is wanted to give family members a break or allow them to go on holiday.
-
Support is required on discharge from hospital.
-
Cover is needed during a permanent carer’s holiday.
-
Accompanying a client on their travels.
-
Giving clients the freedom to do what they want , when they want – i.e. not necessarily care but a higher quality of life. This can include being driven in either your own car or the carer’s car.
-
Live-in care is sometimes used to buy families sufficient time to compare the benefits of care homes and the flexibility to ensure there is no subsequent and unnecessary movement between care homes.
-
For persons suffering from Dementia, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s the added benefit of live-in care is to establish routines in a familiar environment – essential factors in ensuring maximum stability for sufferers.
-
Wherever possible, Joyful Care aim to introduce a carer that will regularly return to you, allowing you to build an ongoing relationship with them. If you need help on an ongoing basis, throughout the year, then more than one carer may be needed to allow for a carers’ breaks and holidays. Each of the carers we suggest for you will have been carefully matched to your requirements and all will have been carefully vetted in our ongoing selection process. Before committing to a carer you are given sufficient information on the proposed carer and the chance to contact them (if required) so that you will have had the opportunity to decide if the carer is right one for you.
If you or a member of your family would benefit from care then please fill in your details and we will call you back.
Personalised Care
Joyful care carer will have similar goals to a companion but will have a larger focus on helping the client maintain independence, dignity and respect. Activities could include:
-
Assistance with getting up and going to bed.
-
General mobility assistance.
-
Help with personal hygiene and getting dressed.
-
Reminders to take necessary medication.
-
Sympathetic encouragement and assistance with eating and drinking.
-
Maintaining sufficient fluid intake.
-
Reinforcing daily physiotherapy routines.
-
Maintaining dignity with respect to continence care.
-
Maintenance of personal appearance – help to style hair or visits to the hairdresser, help to apply make up, shaving, visits to or from a manicurist, help with choosing clothes etc
Specialised Personal Care
Joyful Care carer giving specialist support will either have had many years’ experience combined with suitable training or have nursing qualifications. These carers will understand the difficulties and unpredictability and stressful nature of conditions such as dementia, stroke and Parkinson’s and are aware of the emotional turmoil they can create. Typical conditions where live-in care can be used include:
-
Dementia – providing consistency of routine in familiar surroundings.
-
Parkinson’s – help adapting to new routines.
-
Mental Health – cultivating boundaries and routine and providing emotional support.
-
Learning and severe physical disabilities.
-
Convalescence – adjusting to new challenges and new health and safety hazards.
-
Rehabilitation – endeavouring to reinforce daily rehabilitation (e.g. physiotherapy) routines.
-
Palliative – increasing comfort and promoting dignity.
What will Live-in Carers do?
We are often asked what will the carers do? The answer has to be (within reason) anything that you want them to do!
As a recruitment specialist, our role is to determine exactly what you want and to find the person that matches your individual needs.
Care at home is a very personal requirement and as such varies considerably – from companionship and providing help with domestic duties to intensive personal care assisting individuals with specific needs such as dementia, Parkinson’s and rehabilitation from hospital.
Live-in carers are usually on hand to help from when you wake up in the morning to when you go to bed and typically work 7 days a week. They will require food and their own bedroom and, while available for nearly all the day, it is usual for a live-in carer to have 2 hours’ time off during the day. Carers are normally expected to cook, and will provide nutritious and varied meals. They can either be discrete to give you your “own space” or engage you in the activities and hobbies that you enjoy and help you to achieve any set goals.
Companionship and Housekeeping
Joyful care companion will help stimulate conversation, create new experiences and reduce the burden of domestic duties – generally enriching the client’s quality of life. Activities could include:
-
Light domestic support such as cleaning, laundry, care of pets and light gardening duties.
-
Preparing meals and sharing favourite recipes.
-
Shared enjoyment of common interests and hobbies .
-
Assisting clients to entertain friends and family; for example carers will bake a cake for an afternoon tea or bridge party, or cook Sunday lunch for a family visit.
-
Facilitating short trips out – perhaps a drive in the car on a sunny day, or a trip to a garden centre for a cup of a coffee.
-
Arranging necessary appointments and assistance with correspondence, paperwork.
-
Help clients to keep in touch with family or friends abroad by activating a Skype chat for them every week.
Experienced and carefully chosen Carers
Joyful Care companions and carers are experienced individuals who uphold our belief that respect and dignity are paramount in the provision of care. It is a prerequisite that candidates will be personally interviewed, have a current and comprehensive CV, provide references and be able to produce all relevant paperwork including training documents.
We ensure the relevant training has been undertaken and is up to date, references are checked, including pertinent phone conversations with at least two families of recent clients and that all candidates have undergone an enhanced DBS and Adults barred list check (formally known as CRB/POVA check) – all aimed at giving you, our clients, complete peace of mind!
To find out how live-in care could benefit you, contact us today for an informal chat with one of our live-in care advisors.
why choose joyful care
Some live-in care agencies will specify fixed rotas, hand over days, break times, night time duties and insist you use a specific carer. At Joyful Care, we try to be as flexible as possible and help you to be in control of what matters to you.
Joyful Care live-in care helps you and your loved ones maintain independence by providing tailored and cost effective one to one care. Our processes are designed to give you peace of mind and help ensure a better quality of life.
We offer a personalised service.
We take an in depth profile of all our clients so we are able to closely match carers to clients ensuring they have a similar outlook, hobbies and interests. We assess clients’ daily and weekly routines, interests and goals are determined to ensure that care is truly tailored to individual requirements. This enables carers to develop an effective relationship with their clients and provide a holistic approach to their support.
This tailored care is either not possible or prohibitively expensive within a residential care setting.
The service is flexible and changes can be made as and when circumstances dictate. At Joyful Care, we are there for you for the long term and for the ‘care journey’ of varying needs of companionship, domestic duties and specific personal duties.
Our aim is to facilitate a much higher quality of life, helping to minimise chores (such as housekeeping) and encourage more mental and physical activity.
Much has been written about elderly residents becoming lonely (yet not alone). With that in mind, a live-in carer can be as much a companion as an individual to provide round-the-clock re-assurance and support.
Our live-in carers will be a helping hand in organising appointments and will invariably take clients out on drives and excursions, e.g. garden centres, National Trust properties and shops.
A live-in carer not only gives clients an added sense of security but also gives an assurance to the wider family network of someone to contact in case of emergencies. This is particularly true for families living in different countries.
Joyful Care also provides carers throughout Continental Europe.
A live-in carer provided by Joyful Care is a high quality cost effective alternative to residential care and can be significantly cheaper than both residential care and residential nursing homes. As the carer lives in with the client, the carer receives a necessary benefit which helps keep costs down. This generally means that live-in carers will charge a lower daily or hourly rate than hourly (domiciliary) or daily carers.
The cost of residential care can vary greatly depending on quality and location in the UK. According to a report by healthcare specialists Laing & Buisson in 2018 residential care home costs can range from £27,000 to £39,000 per year.
As the residential care cost for couples is twice as much for couples, there are even greater cost benefits for couples to engage their own Joyful Care carer.
Benefits of live-in home care
Joyful Care offers short and long-term live-in care packages. The need for help shouldn’t mean loss of your home and your independence.
Joyful Care offers short and long-term live-in care packages. The need for help shouldn’t mean loss of your home and your independence. With us, it’s all about one-to-one care. Our Live in carers can offer a constant companion and support for people in their own home 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week.
Benefits of Live-in care
A lot of the information out there is geared towards moving into a residential home and while that is suitable for some, it doesn’t always have to be the case. Often the upheaval of moving into a care home can be very unsettling.
Live in care has many benefits including:
- The maintenance of independence and freedom
- The comfort and security of living in familiar surroundings
- Avoidance of the potential stress of selling a family home
- Protecting inheritance
- Live in the local community among friends and neighbours
- The avoidance of separation from much-loved pets
- Continued enjoyment of a garden and gardening
- Relief from the burden of domestic chores
- The freedom to choose what and when to eat, with meals prepared if required
- Married couples and partners may continue to live together
- Total peace of mind, both for the care recipient and for their family
- A quality of one-to-one personal care and attention unrivalled by residential homes
- Complete continuity of care, even 24 hours-a-day
- Consistent companionship
- The facility for relatives and friends to visit at any time
- The elimination of stress, vulnerability, loneliness, and insecurity
