The place to start is to decide upon the services that you need or wish to receive. These could vary from essential requirements to anything that you feel could improve the quality of your life.

For example you may want assistance:

• with your continence
• with your medication
• to take part in an activity or to go on an outing
• to get out of bed in the morning
• with your housework
• with household bills or modern technology

The services offered by home care agencies vary from agency to agency from those that will only provide basic personal care and domestic services to those that can also assist you with life skills, take you on day trips etc.

There are many different types of home care available - personal care, dementia care, live in care, or domestic assistance, to name but a few.

Care & Support services available from Care South
Personal care
Personal care includes assistance with:

• Getting out of bed and dressing
• Undressing and going to bed
• Washing
• Assistance to the toilet
• Meal preparation
• Shopping
• Sitting with or accompanying to appointments/outings
• Supervision of medication
• Night care
• 24-hour support

Personal care does not include the provision of any medical condition monitoring or treatment whereby an underpinning knowledge of the individual's medical condition is required.

Dementia care
Dementia care includes all the elements of personal care but is delivered by specially trained staff who understand how to best support people living with dementia. They use professionally recognised techniques to engage with people to prevent the isolation that can often be felt by this group.

General Support
General support includes:

• Assistance with household bills and finances
• Teaching of life skills such as cooking, internet shopping etc
• Assistance to meet and make friends
• Assistance to restore and maintain neighbourhood relationships
• 'Moving on' support following bereavement

Domestic assistance
Domestic assistance includes general cleaning, laundry and unaccompanied shopping services.

If you require assistance every day you most likely will receive care and support from a small team of care assistants who will provide your care and support on a rota basis. This way you have help from a team of staff you know and who understand about your care and support needs.

Once you have decided what assistance you require, you may be eligible for partial or full funding for your essential care needs. If you contact your local Social Services department they will explain to you their eligibility criteria and will undertake a needs assessment with you.

If you qualify for free or subsidised care organised through your local authority, you can choose to have 'Direct Payment' or 'Individual Budget' where upon you will receive payments from the local authority to choose and arrange your own care needs independently.

Should you wish to arrange your own care and support, either self funded or by using a 'Direct Payment' or 'Individual Budget', the charges for the help you need will depend upon the type of help you want and when you want it. A number of things affect the cost of your care and support; there may be extra charges for care provided early mornings, in the evenings, at weekends, and on public holidays, and the length of visits will affect how much you have to pay.

You should first check to make sure an agency is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and is member of a professional association, such as the United Kingdom Home Care Association (UKHCA).

All domiciliary care agencies that supply care workers to help with personal care tasks must be registered with the CQC.

The home care agency should offer to send a member of staff out to meet with you to discuss your needs in the comfort of your home.