"Domiciliary care" is jargon for care in your own home, and the term hides more than it explains. Families want to know something specific: will they wash my mother, will they give her tablets, will they do the washing up, and what happens if she falls. This page answers that at task level - what a domiciliary care worker does, what is outside their role, what a visit actually looks like minute by minute, and how the rules on medication and moving people work.
Strip away the language and domiciliary care is four categories of work: personal care, medication support, nutrition, and mobility. Everything else - housework, shopping, company, appointments - is real and valuable but sits around those four.
Personal care covers washing, bathing and showering, oral care, shaving, hair, dressing and undressing, and continence support including changing pads and emptying catheter bags. This is the part of care people find hardest to accept and the part that most protects health, because skin breakdown and infections start where washing stops.
Medication support ranges from prompting to full administration from a pharmacy-prepared blister pack, with a written record of every dose. Nutrition covers preparing meals and drinks, encouraging intake, monitoring what is actually eaten, and following any modified diet the speech and language therapist has specified. Mobility covers safe transfers, walking support, using prescribed equipment and repositioning to protect the skin.
Personal care: washing, bathing, oral care, dressing, continence support
Medication: prompting, assisting or administering, always recorded
Nutrition: meals, drinks, encouraging and monitoring intake
A morning call typically runs like this. The carer arrives, checks the person is well and reads the previous entry in the care record. They support getting up, washing and dressing at the person's pace. Medication is given and recorded. Breakfast and a drink are made, and the carer notices whether they were actually consumed. Pads or continence products are changed, the bed is made, and any hazards - a rug, a spill, an empty pill box - are dealt with. Before leaving, they write up what happened and flag anything that needs attention.
A lunch call is shorter and often centres on a meal, fluids, medication and toileting. A teatime call handles the evening meal. A bedtime call helps someone wash, change, take night medication and get safely into bed, which is often the visit that most reduces night-time falls.
Short fifteen-minute calls are common in council-commissioned care and are widely criticised, because handover and travel eat into them. Longer, less frequent calls generally deliver more useful care for the same money.
Household tasks: what is and is not included
Domiciliary carers do the household tasks connected to the person's care and daily living: washing up after the meal they made, laundry, changing the bed, tidying the person's rooms, taking out rubbish, and light cleaning of kitchen and bathroom.
They are not cleaners for the whole property, and they do not clean up after other members of the household or visitors. Deep cleaning, moving furniture, window cleaning, gardening and heavy lifting sit outside the role.
Shopping is usually included, either accompanied - which is often far more valuable, because it gets the person out - or on the person's behalf with a written record of money and receipts. Handling of money should always be recorded, for the protection of both sides.
Medication: the rules carers work to
There are three levels of medication support, and the care plan must say which applies. Prompting means reminding someone to take their own medication. Assisting means helping physically - opening a bottle, popping a blister - while the person takes it themselves. Administering means the carer gives the medication, which requires training, competency sign-off and a medication administration record.
Carers cannot change doses, cannot give another person's medication, cannot crush tablets unless a prescriber has specifically authorised it, and cannot make decisions about "as required" medication outside what the care plan and prescriber specify.
Controlled drugs, insulin and anything given by injection have tighter rules, and in many cases remain with the district nursing team. A good provider will tell you plainly where the line is rather than agreeing to everything.
Moving and handling, and why one carer sometimes is not enough
Carers are trained in moving and handling and must follow the risk assessment in the care plan. Where a hoist is required, or where the assessment says two people are needed, care must be delivered by two carers - that is a safety requirement, not an upsell.
Families sometimes ask a single carer to do a two-person move because it is quicker or cheaper. A competent carer will refuse, and they are right to. The injuries that result - to the person being moved and to the carer - are serious and common.
If a person's needs change so that transfers become unsafe for one carer, the provider should reassess promptly rather than continuing. That reassessment is also the point to check whether equipment from an occupational therapist would restore independence rather than adding staff.
What a domiciliary carer is not
They are not nurses. Wound dressings, injections, catheter insertion, PEG tube placement and clinical assessment belong to district nurses and the GP. Carers support around those services, notice changes and escalate.
They are not a substitute for a mental capacity assessment or for legal authority. Decisions about someone's money or treatment require the proper legal framework, including Lasting Power of Attorney where it exists.
And they are not there to make decisions for someone who can make their own. Care at home works with a person's choices, including choices a family would not make. Where capacity is in question, the Mental Capacity Act framework applies, and the starting assumption is always that the person has capacity.
How to judge whether the care you are getting is good
Look at the care records. Good records are specific - what was eaten, what was given, what changed. Poor records say "all care given" for six weeks in a row.
Look at timekeeping and consistency. A rotating cast of unfamiliar carers is the single most common complaint in domiciliary care, because continuity is what makes people feel safe and lets carers notice change.
Check the provider's CQC rating and read the inspection report rather than the star. Reedsfield Care is CQC-registered and rated Good; the report is published on this site. Visiting care starts from £22 per hour, and where visits are no longer enough, live-in care starts from £1,150 per week.
They provide care in a person's own home: personal care such as washing, dressing and continence support; medication prompting or administration with a written record; meals, drinks and monitoring of what is eaten; and mobility support including safe transfers and repositioning. Around those they help with laundry, light household tasks connected to daily living, shopping, appointments and company.
What does domiciliary care include?
It includes everything needed to keep someone living safely at home short of clinical treatment - personal care, medication support, nutrition, mobility, household tasks related to the person's daily living, shopping and companionship. It does not include nursing procedures, deep cleaning the whole property, or care for other members of the household.
Can a domiciliary carer give medication?
Yes, at the level set out in the care plan. Prompting means reminding; assisting means helping physically while the person takes it; administering means the carer gives it, which requires training, competency sign-off and a medication administration record. Carers cannot alter doses or crush tablets without a prescriber's authorisation, and injections usually remain with district nurses.
What is the difference between domiciliary care and live-in care?
Domiciliary care is delivered in visits - typically between one and four calls a day. Live-in care means a carer lives in the home and provides continuous presence. Visiting care suits people who need help at specific times; live-in care suits people who cannot safely be alone between visits. Reedsfield Care charges from £22 per hour for visiting care and from £1,150 per week for live-in care.
Do domiciliary carers do cleaning?
They do light household tasks connected to the person's care - washing up, laundry, changing beds, tidying the person's rooms and keeping the kitchen and bathroom clean. They are not general cleaners for the whole house and do not clean up after other household members or visitors.
Why do some visits need two carers?
Because the moving and handling risk assessment says so - usually where a hoist is used or where a transfer cannot be done safely by one person. This is a safety requirement. A single carer attempting a two-person move risks serious injury to themselves and to the person they are moving.
