"24 hour care at home cost" is one of the most searched care questions in the UK, and one of the worst answered. Most pages either refuse to give a number or quote a national average that bears no relation to what a family in Surrey will actually be quoted. This guide explains the three genuinely different ways round-the-clock care is delivered, why each is priced the way it is, and what Reedsfield Care charges: £1,150 per week for live-in care and £22 per hour for visiting and waking-night care.
Before any price makes sense, you need to know which service you are pricing. The phrase 24-hour care is used loosely for at least three arrangements with very different costs.
Live-in care means one carer lives in the home. They are present around the clock, work an agreed working day with breaks, and sleep at night, waking to help if needed. This is the arrangement most families mean when they say they want someone there all the time, and it is by far the cheapest way to have a carer in the house continuously.
Waking night care means a carer stays awake all night, actively supporting someone who needs repositioning, toileting, reassurance or supervision through the night. It is charged by the hour because the carer is working, not resting.
Two-carer or rotational 24-hour cover means staff work in shifts so someone is awake and working at every hour of the day. It is the most intensive and most expensive option, and it is usually only necessary where a hoist, two-person handling or continuous clinical observation is required.
Live-in care: one carer resident, sleeps at night - priced per week
Waking nights: carer awake all night - priced per hour
Shift-based cover: multiple carers, no sleeping hours - priced per hour, multiplied
Visiting care several times a day is not 24-hour care, though it is often cheaper and sufficient
Reedsfield Care's real prices
Reedsfield Care publishes its rates rather than hiding them behind an assessment call. Live-in care starts from £1,150 per week. Visiting care and waking-night care start from £22 per hour.
Those two numbers are what make the arithmetic of 24-hour care obvious. A live-in carer at £1,150 per week works out at roughly £164 per day for continuous presence. The same £1,150 buys about 52 hours of hourly care at £22 - around seven hours a day, not twenty-four.
That is the single most useful thing to understand about round-the-clock care costs: once someone needs more than about seven or eight hours of support a day, live-in care usually costs less than building the same cover out of hourly visits, and it gives the person one consistent carer instead of a rota of visitors.
Where a waking night is genuinely needed alongside a live-in carer - because the person cannot be left unsupervised at any point - that night cover is charged separately at the hourly rate, because a second person is working through the night.
Live-in care from £1,150 per week
Visiting and waking-night care from £22 per hour
Above roughly 7-8 hours of daily support, live-in care is normally the cheaper route
A waking night on top of a live-in carer is a separate, additional cost
What is included, and what sits outside the fee
A live-in care fee covers the carer's time, the agency's recruitment, training, supervision, insurance, out-of-hours support and the management of the care plan. It does not cover the person's own living costs.
The household provides the carer with a private room and normal use of the kitchen and bathroom, and covers the additional food and utilities of one extra person in the house. Families are also expected to arrange cover for the carer's regular breaks, which a good agency will plan into the rota.
With hourly care, the fee covers the visit itself. Very short visits are expensive per useful minute, because travel and handover time are the same whether the visit is fifteen minutes or an hour, so it is usually better value to book fewer, longer visits than many token ones.
Nothing in a home care fee covers medical treatment. District nursing, GP visits and NHS therapy remain free at the point of use, and a carer's job is to support and escalate, not to replace them.
Who might pay some of it for you
Very few families pay the full cost of care without checking what help exists first, and the checks are free.
Attendance Allowance is a non-means-tested benefit for people over State Pension age who need help with personal care or supervision. It is not affected by savings or income, it is paid at two rates depending on whether help is needed by day, or both day and night, and the current rates are published on GOV.UK. It is one of the most under-claimed sources of care funding in the country.
A local authority care needs assessment is free and is a legal right for anyone who appears to need care, whatever their savings. Even where someone will be paying for their own care, the assessment establishes what needs exist and what services the council can arrange.
NHS Continuing Healthcare is fully NHS-funded care for people whose needs are primarily health needs rather than social care needs. It is not means-tested and, where it applies, it can cover the entire cost of care at home. It is assessed through a checklist and then a full multidisciplinary assessment.
NHS-funded Nursing Care is a separate, smaller contribution and applies to nursing home residents rather than people at home, which is a common point of confusion.
Two quotes for the same care can differ by hundreds of pounds a week, and the difference is rarely about quality alone. Introduction agencies, which match you to a self-employed carer and step back, quote lower because you become the employer, with the responsibility for cover, tax, insurance and conduct that comes with it.
A fully managed, CQC-regulated provider quotes higher because the fee includes regulated supervision, a named office team, a written care plan, trained replacement carers when yours is ill, and accountability to the Care Quality Commission for the quality of the service.
Reedsfield Care is a fully managed, CQC-regulated service rated Good, so its rates include that supervision and cover rather than leaving them to the family.
The other genuine driver of price is complexity. Care involving hoisting, two-person transfers, PEG feeding, catheter care or advanced dementia needs more trained staff time, and honest providers say so at the quote stage rather than after the care starts.
Start by counting hours honestly for a week. Write down every point in the day when help is genuinely needed, including nights, and be realistic about how long each takes. Families almost always underestimate mornings and evenings and overestimate the middle of the day.
If the total is under about six hours a day and nights are settled, visiting care at £22 an hour will usually be both cheaper and less intrusive than a resident carer.
If the total is above that, or the person cannot safely be alone between visits, price live-in care at £1,150 per week and compare the two properly rather than assuming continuous care is out of reach. Add the household's extra food and heating costs for one more person to make the comparison fair.
Then subtract what you may be entitled to, starting with Attendance Allowance and a free council assessment, before deciding what is affordable.
Frequently asked questions
How much does 24-hour care at home cost in the UK?
It depends entirely on which form of round-the-clock care you need. At Reedsfield Care, live-in care - one carer resident in the home, sleeping at night - starts from £1,150 per week. Waking-night care, where the carer stays awake, is charged hourly from £22 per hour, as is visiting care. Shift-based cover with a carer awake at all hours is the most expensive option because it is priced as continuous hourly work.
Is 24-hour care at home cheaper than a care home?
For one person with moderate needs, a care home is often slightly cheaper than live-in care; for a couple, live-in care is frequently cheaper, because one carer can support two people while a care home charges two sets of fees. Cost is only part of the decision - live-in care keeps someone in their own home with one consistent carer, which is why many families choose it even at a similar price.
How much does 24-hour live-in care cost per week?
Reedsfield Care's live-in care starts from £1,150 per week. The exact figure depends on the level of need - advanced dementia, hoisting or two-person handling costs more than companionship and personal care. Ask any provider to confirm in writing what is included and whether break cover is charged separately.
Does the NHS pay for 24-hour care at home?
It can. NHS Continuing Healthcare is fully NHS-funded care for people whose needs are primarily health needs, it is not means-tested, and where someone is eligible it can fund a full care package at home. Eligibility is decided by a checklist followed by a full assessment, and the outcome turns on the nature, complexity, intensity and unpredictability of the needs, not on the diagnosis.
What is included in a live-in care fee?
The carer's time, their training and supervision, insurance, out-of-hours support and management of the care plan. The household provides a private room for the carer and covers the extra food and utility costs of one more person. Medical care from the GP, district nurses and NHS therapists remains free and separate.
How many hours of hourly care equal the cost of live-in care?
At £22 per hour, £1,150 buys roughly 52 hours of visiting care - about seven hours a day. Above that level of need, live-in care is normally the better value option as well as the more continuous one.
Tell us what a normal day looks like and we will tell you honestly whether hourly visits or live-in care fits - and exactly what it would cost. Call 01784 740078.
Get a straight answer on cost
Tell us what a normal day looks like and we will tell you honestly whether hourly visits or live-in care fits - and exactly what it would cost. Call 01784 740078.
