Discover exceptional hourly in-home care tailored to your needs with Curam. Our dedicated Care Professionals provide flexible hourly care services all from the comfort of your own home, ensuring safety, dignity, and independence. Whether you need short-term support or ongoing hourly care for the elderly, we offer compassionate assistance at an affordable hourly cost... See more
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Hourly care is when a Care Professional helps and supports those in need of care on an hourly basis. Unlike live-in or overnight care, hourly in-home care gives you the flexibility and security of home care assistance when you need it — and your independence when you don’t. Visiting Care Professionals can stop by to take you to a doctor’s appointment or complete a chore. They can also visit on a regular basis to help you stay healthy, happy and secure. Curam’s experienced hourly Care Professionals provide specialist support to meet clients' care needs throughout the UK.
With a visiting Care Assistant, you can continue living a fulfilling life in your own home. They can support you in numerous ways:
Hourly visiting care can be as simple as an occasional visit from a PA for a chat, or as complex as a schedule of daily visits for long-term care needs. Curam can connect you with hourly visiting Care Professionals to meet your specific care needs, 24/7.
For those who require more complex care, learn more about live-in care and overnight care.
Get startedEnable you to remain living independently or with family
Maintain your privacy and existing schedule
Provide care when you need it, and not when you don’t
Help you to keep in contact with your family, friends and community
Arranging hourly visiting care gives you the flexibility to receive care at home exactly when you want it. Unlike live-in care, hourly care gives you the personal freedom of living alone, or with family and only seeing your Support Worker when you need them.
If you have family or friends that otherwise provide support or help you around the house, hourly care can be a great solution for when your family and friends are on holiday, at work, or unavailable at short notice. With Curam, you can hire an hourly Care Assistant of your choice and build a relationship with them over time.
Hourly care at home is a popular choice for those who wish to remain living independently while receiving the support and care that they need to continue living a full, healthy life, safely.
If you have care needs that can be met at home, but aren’t so complex that you need 24/7 assistance, hourly care may be right for you. This includes those who need home care due to mobility issues and conditions such as dementia, or those who are recovering from a stroke or recent hospital stay.
Care Professionals will fulfil the tasks agreed to in their service agreement. These tasks can range from personal care to domestic tasks and chores including shopping, laundry, meal preparation and transport. The focus is on making sure you feel safe, independent and cared for through your regular routines.
Ready to find a local Care Professionals suited to your care needs? Just add your postcode to the box below and we will connect you to experienced Care Assistants near you.
Hourly care with Curam is tailored to you. Care Professionals on Curam provide many different kinds of care:
A Care Assistant looks after those in need of care according to the tasks agreed in each service agreement. If you have pets, there are Curam Care Professionals who can help to look after them. Many Care Professionals also drive their own vehicles and can help you with transport as and when you need.
Some of the tasks an hourly Care Assistant might normally carry out are:
Personalise your search to find experienced Care Professionals near you
Or
Post your express CuramPlan to find Care Professionals that fit your immediate care needs
Video/audio call your chosen Care Professional on CuramMeet or message them via the app.
Hire your insured and vetted Care Professional via Curam.
Our self-employed Care Professionals set their own rates. The cost of hourly care is often determined by the level of care required, the number of people needing care and the total hours per week. Hourly home care rates can vary according to the Care Professionals experience and qualifications.
If you need more support, live-in care and overnight care may be better suited to your needs.
The average hourly care rate charged by Care Professionals on Curam is £20.50 per hour*, with rates starting at £14.40 an hour. *Rates vary depending on where you live in the UK.
Invoices are also subject to the Curam client fee of 12%. However, this client fee may be lowered or waived for our business partners or those receiving local authority or NHS funding for their care. Please email client@curamcare.com to learn more about your costs with Curam.
Clients on the Curam platform pay on average 22% less than the current suggested UK Home Care Association hourly rate of £28.53
We know that hiring a Care Professional is an emotionally charged decision, so we’ve done everything we can to make it as safe, seamless, and stress-free as possible.
Choice is at the heart of Curam. By connecting experienced Care Assistants and those in need of care, we enable people to take control of their care. We’ve made it possible to hire a Care Professional within a matter of hours, so those in need of care can find the care they need, whenever they need it, 24/7.
With Curam you can search, interview, message, hire and pay approved and vetted PA all throughout the UK. We are building a care community that allows those in need of care to live a happy, safe, fulfilled, independent life.
Curam is a community of experts. Every Care Professional on Curam’s platform has been interviewed and fully vetted by our recruitment team. They have had a DBS check, are legally entitled to work in the UK and any qualifications mentioned on their profile are backed up with certificates.
Curam does things differently. Unlike care agencies, we make sure the choice of care is in your hands. You can interview Care Professionals personally before hiring them and have a final say on what their responsibilities will be in your home.
Our Care Professionals are self-employed. Their Curam fee covers the cost of their insurance, easy-to-use service agreements and a hassle-free payment system. This means that the client pays less than they would with an agency, and the Care Professional in turn receives a higher wage.
In-home care with Curam respects independence. It is tailored to each individual while allowing them to live in the comfort of their own home. Receiving care at home can be a safer and more cost-effective alternative to a care home.
To arrange visiting care on Curam, start by posting a job. By adding relevant details including your postcode, care requirements, preferences for PAs and any more details you think would be helpful, then our PAs that fit your needs can apply directly to your posted job.
We recommend that you call or meet your Care Professional of choice before contracting with them. Our in-app feature, CuramMeet, allows you to connect via a one-to-one audio/video call, safely, all from the comfort of your own home, without sharing any personal details.
Alternatively, you can use our search tool to find a local Care Professionals that suit your care needs. You can filter by care type, condition, experience, languages spoken and more in your search. If you see a particular Care Assistant that fits your criteria, send them a message outlining your care needs and organise a call.
All Care Professionals can be tried on a trial basis and any specific arrangement can be changed or cancelled with a minimum notice of 48 hours.
You can pay for hourly home care privately, with assistance from the NHS or local authority, or from a combination of different sources.
Most people who pursue care at home will pay for it privately. However, you may be able to get funding to help pay for your care. There are three steps that you can follow to ensure that you receive all the money to which you are entitled:
Check your eligibility for benefits with a benefits calculator
1Check your eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare funding
2Apply for local authority funding
3If you still have difficulty funding your own care after checking the above services, you may consider other options such as equity release.
According to the NHS, you might be eligible for local council support towards the cost of your social care if you have less than £100,000 in savings (called the upper capital limit, or UCL). From October 2023 this will rise to £100,000 in savings.
Exactly how much your council will pay depends on what care you need and how much you can afford to pay.
The first step is for your council to do an assessment to check how much help you need. This is called a needs assessment. The needs assessment is free and anyone can ask for one. Find out more about getting a needs assessment.
Some people with long-term complex health needs qualify for free social care arranged and funded solely by the NHS. This is known as NHS continuing healthcare.
To be eligible for NHS continuing healthcare, you must be assessed by a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals. The team will look at all your care needs and relate them to:
Your eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare depends on your assessed needs, and not on any particular diagnosis or condition. If your needs change then your eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare may change.
With Curam, you pay for care through a secure payment system on our app or website. Your Care Professional of choice will create a service agreement and shift invoice, which will automatically be sent to your Curam account for your approval.
Once you have approved these, you will be taken to the payment portal. Your payment is held securely until the shift is completed and is then released to the Care Professional two working days after the end of the shift, minus the Curam fee. Shift invoices typically cover one to two weeks of care at a time, but specific payment frequency can be agreed with your Care Professional.
Off-platform and cash payments are not accepted. These are liable to a penalty fee of £1,000 + VAT. Please see our terms and conditions for more information, specifically point 9.3.
Hourly visiting care is just that: hourly. You and your visiting Care Professional can decide on a regular schedule that suits your needs, whether that be every weekday afternoon for several hours at a time, or only for a few hours once a week.
If you are seeking part-time hourly care from one Care Professional, your Care Professional will likely have other clients they see during other shifts throughout the week. You can seek to work with other care assistant in rotation or arrange for one-off visits as needed.
Hourly visiting Care Professionals are often needed at the same few times a day, so those who are more flexible in their care times will find they have more available Care Professionals to choose from. If your care needs are concentrated at night or exceed 8 hours per day, overnight care or live-in care may be better suited to your needs.
Depending on your care needs, the responsibilities of your hourly PA may include meal planning, grocery shopping and preparing meals. In these instances, most people pay for the meals that the PA prepares or eats during their time in their client’s home.
However, many visiting hourly Care Professionals will not spend enough time in your home and will eat on their own time outside of their shift. Expectations around meals can be agreed in the service agreement.
Many visiting Care Professionals are comfortable helping with or managing an array of household chores that fit into their care schedule with you, including laundry, basic cleaning, gardening, mail and email management, taking out the rubbish, grocery shopping, running errands, preparing meals and more. These expectations around housework can all be agreed upon in the service agreement
While hourly Care Professionals are not professional cleaners, they are often happy to do basic household cleaning chores during their shifts such as vacuuming, wiping down counters and cleaning up after their client. Expectations around cleaning can be agreed in the service agreement.
Visiting care is when a Care Professional helps and supports those in need of care on an hourly basis. Unlike live-in or overnight care, hourly visiting in-home care gives you the flexibility and security of home care assistance when you need it — and your independence when you don’t. Curam’s experienced hourly support workers provide specialist support to meet clients' care needs all throughout the UK.
Curam Care Professionals set their own rates, so the cost of care can change depending on each Care Professional. Curam’s Care Professionals’ rates are shown on their Curam profile, and some Care Professionals will also negotiate rates, so if you have a number in mind, you can always talk to individual Care Professionals and agree on a rate that works for you both. Our average hourly care rate is currently £20.23. If you’d like to find out the cost of care in your area, our cost of home care calculator can help you find the average hourly cost of care at home for you.
Visiting care is when support workers are booked on an hourly basis, as and when those in need of care require them. These visits can vary from a couple of hours here and there, or multiple hours every day. Unlike live-in care, support workers will not be living with those in need of care but will visit the home to help support and care for those in need of support. If you need more assistance than an hourly care visit, live-in care may be the best option for you. Find out more about live-in care here.
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Finding and managing your Care Professional is much easier on our Curam client app. Lots of new features including digital health care plans and family sharing apps coming very soon.
