Live-in care is a trained carer living in the home, supporting someone through the day and overnight. It means staying in the house they know rather than moving into a care home. Your Mum or Dad keeps their own bed, their own routines and one familiar face. From £1,800 a week, VAT exempt.
CQC-regulated and rated Good. Registered Manager Courtney Pike. Families rate us 9.9 out of 10 on homecare.co.uk, where we were named a Top 20 Home Care Provider in the East Midlands for 2026.
The short version
- Cost: from £1,800 a week for one person, from £2,250 for a couple. No VAT.
- Carers: directly employed by us, paid £14 an hour flat. We never use agency staff, and we are not a franchise.
- Coverage: the whole of Nottinghamshire and into South Lincolnshire.
- Breaks: every carer has a protected daily break. Where someone cannot safely be alone during it, a second carer covers the period, charged separately and agreed at assessment.
- Compared with a care home: close in price for one person, usually cheaper for a couple.
What a live-in carer helps with
A live-in carer becomes a steady, familiar presence in the home. Day to day, that can include:
- Personal care: washing, dressing, bathing and continence support, done with privacy and dignity.
- Help getting up in the morning and settling at night.
- Meals: planning, cooking, and encouraging someone to eat and drink well.
- Medication prompting or administration, in line with the care plan.
- Mobility support around the home and help to stay steady on their feet.
- Companionship, conversation, and keeping up with hobbies, routines and family contact.
- Light housekeeping, laundry, and keeping the home comfortable.
- Getting out to appointments, the shops, or a favourite place.
The point of live-in care isn’t to take over. It’s to make ordinary life manageable again, so the person keeps as much control and routine as possible.
What live-in care costs
Live-in care with Helping at Home starts at £1,800 a week for one person and £2,250 a week for a couple. Care is exempt from VAT under the welfare services rules, so there is nothing to add to those figures.
That price covers the carer living in the home and supporting daily life through the day and overnight. It doesn’t cover the carer’s food and the room they sleep in, which the household provides. Some providers charge those separately at £50 to £100 a week, so it’s worth checking what any quote includes.
One thing to know about breaks. Every live-in carer has a protected break each day, because a carer who doesn’t rest properly isn’t a safe carer. Many clients are fine on their own for that period and nothing further is needed. Where someone cannot safely be left alone, a second carer comes in to cover the break. That is an additional charge on top of the weekly fee, confirmed at assessment. We tell you which applies to your situation before you agree to anything, not afterwards.
Where the money can come from:
- Privately funded, paid by the client or the family.
- Local authority funded, following a needs assessment and a financial assessment.
- NHS Continuing Healthcare, which covers the full cost of care for people who qualify on health grounds.
- Attendance Allowance, which is not means-tested and can contribute regardless of savings.
Our costs and funding hub explains each route in plain English. If health needs are the main reason care is needed, start with NHS Continuing Healthcare.
Live-in care compared with a care home
Families weighing the two are usually asking the same two questions: which keeps the person happier, and which makes financial sense. Here are the numbers.
| Option | Typical weekly cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Live-in care, one person | From £1,800 | One carer in your own home, one-to-one, own routines |
| Live-in care, a couple | From £2,250 | One carer supporting both people, staying together at home |
| Residential care home | £1,298 | A staffed building, on-site company, shared attention |
| Nursing home | £1,535 | As above with a registered nurse on site |
| Two care home places for a couple | £2,400 to £3,400 | Two rooms, often in different parts of the building |
Care home averages are UK-wide figures published by carehome.co.uk for 2026. They vary by area and by home, and specialist dementia care usually costs more.
For one person the two options land close together, and the decision is rarely about money alone. Live-in care keeps someone at home with one familiar carer. A care home offers a building staffed around the clock and company on site, which suits some people better. We will tell you which we think fits.
For a couple the arithmetic is less balanced, which brings us to the next section.
Live-in care for couples
One carer can support both people in the same household for a single weekly fee. A care home charges per person.
That difference is worth roughly £150 to £1,150 a week, depending on the homes being compared. It is the reason many couples who assumed they would have to separate find they don’t. After forty or fifty years in the same house, being told you’ll be living in different rooms in different wings is often the hardest part of the whole conversation.
Live-in care for a couple starts at £2,250 a week. Both people keep their home, their bed and each other. Where the two have different needs, the care plan sets out how the carer’s time is divided. At assessment we are straightforward about whether one carer can meet both sets of needs safely, or whether more support is required.
Is your live-in carer employed or self-employed?
This is the question almost nobody thinks to ask, and it separates providers more than price does.
Some of the biggest names in live-in care are introductory agencies. They connect families with self-employed carers and take a fee for the introduction. Elder’s own website states that “introductory agencies, like Elder, connect families with self-employed professional carers”. Its legal notice goes further, stating that “the Care Quality Commission (CQC) defines companies like Elder as an introductory agency pursuant to the Health and Social Care Act 2008”. Elder is not registered with the CQC as a provider of personal care. Other platforms run a similar model, sometimes alongside a separate regulated service.
Nothing about that is hidden and nothing about it is unlawful. But it means something practical. With an introductory model, the carer is self-employed, the relationship is between them and the household, and the agency’s role largely ends once the introduction is made.
Helping at Home works the other way round. Every carer is directly employed by us, recruited by us, DBS-checked by us, trained by us and supervised by us. If something goes wrong, it is our responsibility and there is a Registered Manager’s name against it. We are also independent rather than a franchise, which several of the familiar local names are not.
Three questions worth asking any live-in provider before comparing prices:
- Is the carer employed by you, or self-employed?
- Are you registered with the CQC to provide personal care, and what is your current rating?
- Who is accountable if the arrangement stops working?
How we train and keep our carers
Every carer completes mandatory training before working unsupervised, covering manual handling, safeguarding, medication, infection control, first aid, food hygiene and fire safety. Records are auditable and the CQC inspects them. We fund NVQ Level 3 and Level 5 for carers who want to progress, and any certificate earned with us belongs to the carer.
Carers are paid £14 an hour as a flat rate, above both the National Living Wage and the Real Living Wage, with travel time paid and training paid. That matters to families for a simple reason: carers who are treated well stay, and carers who stay are the ones your Dad gets used to.
It shows in how long people stay. Our carers have been with us an average of more than two years, in a sector where turnover is high and agency cover is the norm. That is the practical reason we can put a small, settled team around a live-in placement rather than a rota of new faces.
More on how we keep the same faces coming is on our familiar carers page.
When live-in care is the right choice, and when it isn’t
Live-in care suits someone whose needs have grown beyond a few visits a day, but who would rather stay at home than move. It works well when one carer can meet the person’s needs across the day, and when nights are mostly settled or need only occasional help.
We are direct about its limits, because the wrong arrangement isn’t safe.
A single live-in carer needs proper rest and sleep. Live-in care on its own isn’t suitable when someone needs frequent help every night, needs turning through the night, or needs two carers to move safely. In those cases we talk through the alternatives, including adding a waking night carer alongside the live-in carer, or whether a different setting would meet the need better. Our overnight care page covers waking and sleeping nights.
Some health needs sit outside the scope of live-in care, including tasks requiring clinical training such as catheter, stoma, PEG feeding or ventilation support. Where those needs exist, our complex care page sets out exactly what our trained team can and cannot do, and where a district nurse or other clinician stays involved.
For someone living with dementia, live-in care often works particularly well, because the surroundings stay familiar and one consistent carer learns the person’s patterns. Our dementia care page goes into that in more detail.
Where we provide live-in care
Because a live-in carer lives in the home rather than travelling to visits, live-in care reaches further than our hourly visiting service. It is available across the whole of Nottinghamshire and into South Lincolnshire:
- Nottingham city, including Clifton, Wollaton, Sherwood, Basford, Bulwell and Bilborough
- Gedling and Broxtowe, including Arnold, Carlton, Beeston, Chilwell, Stapleford and Eastwood
- Rushcliffe, including West Bridgford, Bingham, Radcliffe on Trent, Keyworth and Ruddington
- Mansfield and Ashfield, including Mansfield Woodhouse, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Hucknall
- Bassetlaw, including Worksop, Retford, Harworth and Tuxford
- Newark and Sherwood, including Newark, Southwell, Ollerton, Balderton, Fernwood and Collingham
- South Lincolnshire, including Grantham, Long Bennington and the surrounding villages
Worth knowing if you are applying for council help: Nottingham City Council is a separate unitary authority from Nottinghamshire County Council, so the council you deal with depends on your postcode rather than your postal address. The Nottingham page sets out which areas fall where.
Where a second carer is needed to cover the daily break, that carer has to be local to the placement, so we confirm at assessment whether we can staff it in your area. If we cannot, we say so.
What happens next
- Call us or request a care assessment. Tell us what’s changed and what a normal day looks like now.
- We visit to understand the need. We look at daily routines, risks, the home itself, overnight needs and what matters most to the person.
- We confirm whether live-in care fits, and what it will cost. If it fits, you get the full weekly figure including any break cover, in writing. If it doesn’t fit, we say so and talk through alternatives.
- We match a carer and plan the introduction. Wherever possible, you meet the carer before care starts.
- Care starts and is reviewed. We keep in touch, watch how things settle, and adjust the plan as needs change.
A first conversation doesn’t commit you to anything.
More on live-in care
- Live-in care costs in 2026: why published prices range from £1,000 to £1,900, and what the headline figure leaves out.
- Live-in care vs a care home: the comparison with numbers, and when a care home is the better answer.
- Live-in care for couples: one carer, one fee, both of you at home.
- Live-in dementia care: why familiar surroundings do so much of the work.
- Employed or self-employed?: the question that separates providers more than price does.
- How to fund live-in care: the four routes, and who qualifies for each.
- Care at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest: a carer for the week if the break is at the Rufford village.
Live-in care across Nottinghamshire and South Lincolnshire, from £1,800 a week. Call 01636 646915 or request a care assessment.
A first conversation commits you to nothing.
