User:UK Live-in Care/sandbox

Live-in Care services are a common alternative choice for older people in the UK who prefer to remain in their own home rather than moving into a residential care home.

In 1980 there were only around half a dozen live-in care providers offering a rotational fortnightly/monthly system of care workers who would move into an older person's home offering domestic, personal and social care support. Towards the end of the 1980's with Government financial help, this type of service was available to younger disabled people needing high dependency care support and wanting a home of their own, which in addition could be State provided.

Live-in, care agencies, working with other care professionals in a person's health and care spectrum can provide high dependency home care services so that it is not always necessary for an older person to move into a care home and they do have the choice to spend the rest of their lives in their home of choice, their own home.

The UK in 2016 has over 10,000 home care agencies, about a third of which now offer live-in care services.

Able Community Care was one of the original live-in care providers in the 1980's offering services throughout the UK and beyond from it's base in Norwich, Norfolk where it still has it's head office today. It is estimated that the company has provided over 60 million hours of live-in care to date (2016).

UK surveys continually show that given the choice, staying in your own home is the first choice of the majority of older people. Financially the UK is moving to a situation where only people with sufficient personal funds will be able to purchase such a service as State funding, other than some NHS funding sources, is now largely unobtainable.

Angela Gifford MD Able Community Care www.ablecommunitycare.com