Choosing a Home Care Agency in Middlesex (Spelthorne)

Start with the question: council route or private arrangement?

There are two ways into home care. One is through Surrey County Council, which carries out a needs assessment and, if your relative is eligible, a financial assessment to work out what they pay. The other is to contact an agency directly and arrange care privately. Many families do both: they ask for an assessment and start private care while they wait.

A needs assessment is free and anyone who appears to need care is entitled to one, regardless of their savings. It is worth having even if you expect to pay for everything yourself, because it gives you an independent view of what support is needed and can open the door to equipment, adaptations or a carer's assessment for the family member doing the most.

If the council does fund some or all of the care, it may offer a direct payment so that you can choose the agency yourself. That is where the rest of this page becomes useful.

Five checks before you ring any agency

Every agency that provides personal care, such as help with washing, dressing or medication, must be registered with the Care Quality Commission. Look the agency up on the CQC website, read the latest report rather than just the rating, and note the date of the last inspection.

Then look at where the agency is based. An office in Kingston or Slough may technically cover Spelthorne, but short travel times between visits are what keep carers on time. Ask which carers would actually be covering your relative's road.

• Registered with the CQC for personal care, with a report you have read
• An office close enough for a manager to visit in person
• Carers who are employed, trained and DBS checked
• A written care plan agreed before the first visit
• Clear hourly rates and notice terms in writing

Questions that separate good agencies from busy ones

Most agencies will say the right things on the phone. The questions below tend to show how an agency actually runs.

How many different carers would my mother see in a typical week? What is the shortest visit you book, and why? What happens if a carer is running late, and who tells us? Who writes the care plan and how often is it reviewed? What do you do if my father refuses care on a bad day? Can we meet the care manager at home before anything starts?

Listen for specific answers. An agency that can name the carers who work in Ashford or Sunbury, and explain how its rota is built around those towns, is usually one that can deliver consistent care.

What visiting care covers in Spelthorne homes

Visiting care, sometimes called domiciliary care, means a carer comes to the home at agreed times. A typical pattern might be a morning visit to help with getting up and breakfast, a lunchtime call, and an evening visit to help with tea, medication and bed. Some people need a single visit a day; others need four.

Visits cover personal care, medication prompts, meals, light housework, shopping and company. Carers also go with people to appointments, including trips to Ashford Hospital or a GP surgery, and help them get out and about.

Where visits stop being enough, for example because nights are broken or someone is at real risk alone, live-in care becomes the next step. Our live-in care page for Spelthorne explains how that works locally.

Costs and help towards them

Reedsfield Care's weekday daytime home care starts from £28 an hour for weekday daytime care. Live-in care starts from £1,300 a week. We quote in writing after a free assessment visit, with no joining fee.

Attendance Allowance is paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to people over State Pension age who need help with personal care, and it is not means tested. If a family member provides a lot of the care, they may be entitled to Carer's Allowance. Both are worth checking before care starts.

If your relative's savings fall below the national threshold, Surrey County Council may contribute towards care after a financial assessment. The council's adult social care pages explain how to start.

Red flags worth taking seriously

A few warning signs come up again and again when families look back on care that went wrong. None of them proves an agency is poor, but each is worth a direct question before you sign anything.

Be wary of an agency that will not put prices, notice periods and cancellation terms in writing, or that quotes a rate on the phone without meeting your relative. Be cautious if nobody from the office offers to visit before care starts, if the care plan is a generic form with the name filled in, or if the agency cannot say which carers would cover your road.

Very short visits deserve a question too. A fifteen minute call can be enough to check someone has taken a tablet, but it is rarely enough for washing, dressing and breakfast without rushing. Ask how the agency decides visit lengths and whether they can be changed once care has started.

Finally, pay attention to how the agency talks about your relative. Good agencies ask what the person enjoys, what they are anxious about and how they like things done, not only what tasks need doing.

• No written prices or terms
• No home visit before the first call
• A care plan that could belong to anyone
• No clear answer on which carers would visit

Where Reedsfield fits, honestly

Our office is in Egham. We cover six towns: Ashford, Staines, Sunbury and Shepperton on the Spelthorne side, and Egham and Virginia Water on the Runnymede side. We do not cover the rest of historic Middlesex, and we would rather refer you on than take on care we cannot staff reliably.

Our carers are employed by us and DBS checked. We are rated Good by the CQC and our latest report is on our website. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and suggest where to look next.