What is a Home Carer?

What is a home carer?

A home carer, also called a homecare worker, is someone that visits or lives in a vulnerable adult’s own home to provide support and help for them. Having a homecare worker allows the elderly or disabled adult to stay in the comfort and familiarity of their home instead of relocating to residential care or a care home to live safely.

The terms care worker, carer, care giver, care assistant, domiciliary worker and many others are often interchangeable terms for people who provide support for vulnerable people. Those who need a carer are often either elderly, living with a disability or long-term illness, or are at end-of-life.

This guide offers a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know about becoming and working as a professional carer. In this guide, we will focus on the role of live-in carers and visiting carers (often called daily carers or domiciliary carers).

Professional carers and unpaid carers

Most carers in the UK are not paid. There are over 1.6 million care jobs in the UK*, however, there could be up to 9.1 million people providing unpaid care in some form each year**. They are usually friends and family of a vulnerable adult. This is often the first port of call when a family member needs additional help and support around the home.

Unpaid carers could be a neighbour, who regularly pops by to provide companionship, to a spouse that is providing full-time personal care. Unpaid carers are sometimes entitled to some form of benefit or payment from local authorities. Depending on the condition of the person who needs support, social services can provide a paid carer to support the unpaid carer.

Paid carers are paid for the professional work they do. They are either paid by the care provider they are employed by or they are paid directly by a private client or their representative if they are a self-employed carer. Either way, they usually work to a set number of hours a day, or week.

*The State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce 2021 (skillsforcare.co.uk)

**Carers Week Research Report 2020
(carersuk.org)

The role of a home carer

There are many types of professional homecare jobs available at any given time and the sector is generally always recruiting. There is a broad variety of tasks that a paid carer could undertake on a day-to-day basis. These will depend on factors such as working hours (full-time, hourly, or overnight) and the individual needs of the client.

Regardless of their needs however, a client will always expect a carer to support them with compassion and treat them like they would a member of their own family.

A rewarding career

A career in care can give people some of the most rewarding days at work they will ever have. .As with many vocations, carers are always learning and improving their skills, and no two days are the same.

An employed care worker will often enjoy working with like-minded people in a company whose primary duty is that of care; so, they will often care for their staff just as much as they do their clients.

As with any job, not every day is going to be easy. Some days can be hard work and tiring. Alongside knowledge, skills, and experience, great carers have intrinsic personal qualities that make them right for the job, such as resilience, compassion, and above all a caring nature.

Our next section introduces the different types of homecare worker including live-in carers, visiting carers and the pros and cons of working self-employed or working directly for a care provider. Download our complete Guide to Becoming a Carer for free. Everything you need to know about becoming a carer in one handy pdf which you can print out or read digitally.