Deciding to get home care is a big step in anybody’s life, but after making this important decision, you will soon feel the benefits of the extra care, support, and independence. There are numerous different reasons why someone may seek home care support. For example, they may be disabled, elderly, or have mental health difficulties […]
Deciding to get home care is a big step in anybody’s life, but after making this important decision, you will soon feel the benefits of the extra care, support, and independence.
There are numerous different reasons why someone may seek home care support. For example, they may be disabled, elderly, or have mental health difficulties or medical needs, significantly impacting someone’s quality of life.
After your care needs assessment has been completed, decided on your budget and are ready to take the next step, a home care team or agency will organise with you what the best times of day would be for you to have support and any changes to your home that might be required to help carers look after you more effectively.
Care workers are diligent about keeping your home secure and will often use key safes, a small safe attached to the outside of your house, secured by a pin. A copy of your house key will be kept in the safe so that care workers can access it to enter your home, without the dangers of carrying around lots of different keys and risk losing them.
Care workers can show you how to better layout your home to facilitate your home care and will keep written notes around so that anyone who visits can pick up where they left off quickly. These notes are assigned a dedicated area, and these must not be moved so that your visiting care worker and management can easily find them. However, you can decide where this designated spot is. You can also expect a care worker to keep medicine in a locked medicine box and a place for standard equipment such as hoists and the medicine box.
There are many different types of care to choose from; you may realise you have many other people coming to your home throughout the day. This can be strange and sometimes difficult to get used to. However, a busy household can also be enjoyable and even help socialisation and motivation.
With your chosen care worker, you may receive a rota each week to show when your carer will be coming by, so you don’t need to worry about privacy. You can arrange for a copy of this to be sent to a family member or loved one involved in your care. Most of the time, your weekly rota will remain very similar, but it can be subject to change when people are on holiday or off sick. You should always be notified if a new care worker who hasn’t worked with you before is coming by, and they will have a badge or ID card so that you can check they are the right person.
Home care teams are organised and tidy; they are designed to fit around your life, regardless of the type of support you are receiving. Many people will have housework as part of their regular cooking and cleaning support. Whether this is part of your plan, home workers will always tidy up after themselves, adhering to health and safety measures and ensuring a safe, hygienic home for you. When given proper home care, the opportunities are extensive and provide much-needed independence and improvement to many people’s quality of life.
