Visiting care is what most people mean by home care: a Care Professional comes to the house, does what needs doing, and leaves things as you would want them. It is how almost everyone we look after is supported — from one friendly call-in a day to four visits from morning to bedtime.
It is not a single service so much as the shape the care takes. What happens inside the visits is up to you: help washing and dressing, a hot meal, medication, an hour of company, or specialist support for dementia. Same familiar faces, built around the day you already have.
What visiting care can include
- Flexible visit lengths to suit you
- Help with washing, dressing, meals and medication
- Support getting out to appointments and activities
- Companionship and a friendly chat
- Help around the home and with errands
- The same familiar faces, every visit
Visits built around the day you already have
Visiting care is exactly what it sounds like: a Care Professional comes to the home for an agreed length of time, does what needs doing, and leaves things as you'd want them. It might be one call-in a day to help someone get up and dressed, or four visits from morning to bedtime.
What it isn't is a fixed package you have to fit into. We start from the day you already have — when you like to get up, when you eat, when your programmes are on — and put the visits around that. If mornings are the hard part and the rest of the day is fine, that's all you need to book.
How long, and how often
We offer 30-minute, 45-minute and one-hour visits, from once a week to several times a day. Most people start with more than they think they'll need and scale back, or start small and add as things change — both are fine, and there's no notice penalty for adjusting.
If you're finding the nights harder than the days, overnight support is a separate option — a sleeping night for occasional help, or a waking night for active care. And if visits stop being enough, live-in care is the usual next step rather than a move into a home.
- 30, 45 or 60-minute visits
- From weekly to several times a day
- Morning, lunchtime, teatime and bedtime calls
- Sleeping or waking nights where they're needed
- Change the pattern as needs change, without penalty
The same visits, doing different jobs
Families often ask which service they need. Usually the answer is that they need visiting care, and the question is really what the visits should do — which can change from month to month without the arrangement changing at all.
Personal care is the hands-on side: washing, dressing, the bathroom, medication, meals. Companionship is a visit whose job is the company itself — a cup of tea, a game of cards, a lift to the shops. Plenty of people have both, on different days.
Dementia care is visiting care delivered by people trained for it, with the patience and the familiarity that memory loss needs. Respite is the same visits arranged so a family carer can rest, travel or recover. Fall recovery and support for other conditions work the same way.
You do not need to pick the right label before you ring. Describe the day you are dealing with and we will work out the shape with you.
Nights, and living in
Visiting care covers a great deal, but not everything. If the nights are the hard part — someone up and wandering, or a husband or wife lying awake listening — night care puts someone in the house from evening to morning, either sleeping over or awake throughout.
And if visits are creeping up to the point where someone is needed most of the day, live-in care is usually the next step rather than a move into a care home. It is often better value too: we will show you the arithmetic rather than keep adding visits.
Most families move along this line gradually, and plenty move back down it again once things settle. Nothing here is a one-way door.
What visiting care costs
A one-hour weekday visit is £36, 45 minutes is £31.75 and 30 minutes is £27.50, with published rates for weekends and bank holidays too. There is no travel charge and no call-out fee anywhere we cover, and home care is VAT-exempt.
We publish the whole rate card rather than asking you to ring for a number, along with the four routes that might help pay for it — council funding, Attendance Allowance, self-funding and NHS Continuing Healthcare. It's all on our costs and funding page.
Visiting Care questions
Thirty minutes. That's enough for a medication prompt, help getting up or settled, or a quick check that everything is as it should be. If half an hour turns out to be a rush, say so and we'll lengthen it — nobody does good work against a stopwatch.
We can usually carry out the free home assessment the same day you call, and have care in place within 48 hours. If it's more urgent than that, tell us when you ring and we'll be straight with you about what we can do.
That's the point of keeping the team small. You'll have a regular group who know your routine rather than whoever the rota produces, and you'll meet them before they start. Holidays and illness happen, but we'll tell you in advance rather than sending a stranger unannounced.
Never for travel — the rate is the same whether you're in the middle of Trowbridge or out in a village, and there's no call-out fee. Weekends and bank holidays do carry a higher rate, and every figure is published on the costs page so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Yes, and most people do. Needs rarely stay still. We review the plan with you regularly, and you can add, shorten or drop visits as things change — there's no notice penalty for reducing care.
Let's find the right care, together
A friendly voice, not a call centre.