Reassure yourself about the care support staff who will be supporting you in the home

If you are paying for care to support you in the home, your care support provider should arrange quality staff who will support you, your family and the person you care for based on your individual needs. But there are questions you can ask them to reassure yourself.

Questions and checks to ask your care support provider:

  • Check that all support workers have up-to-date criminal record checks. This is known as a DBS check in England and Wales, a Disclosure Scotland check in Scotland and Access NI in Northern Ireland. If you are buying support from a care provider agency you shouldn’t be charged for these checks.
  • Check that staff training complies with, or exceeds, the legal requirements. 
  • Check that new staff should also be properly inducted around care standards before being able to provide care on their own.
  • Find out how staff will be trained to provide the support you and the person you care for need if they do not have the required skills, and specialist skills are needed such as peg feeding or tracheotomy cleaning.
  • Check that each staff member has regular supervision and a development plan that sets out their personal training requirements.
  • Check who pays for the staff training – and what will happen when your support worker is away being trained? Who will support you?
  • Check what additional services are provided to you as the carer and your wider family, to help you maintain your own health and wellbeing. These should be available if your care support provider is thinking about the carer and their family as well as the person they care for.

If you are employing a personal assistant directly:

If you are employing a personal assistant directly then you need to make sure you do the necessary checks yourself. 

Find out more about personal assistants.

Getting help at home

Find out more about getting help from paid care support workers at home.

"When my husband came out of hospital, he needed extra help with dressings and changing a colostomy bag. My support team were trained in how to do this which made things so much easier for me."

Susan, who cares for her husband