The Pros and Cons of Home Care: Is It Right for Your Family?

Home care allows your loved one to receive professional support in the comfort of their own home. It’s ideal for those wanting to maintain independence and familiar routines, but it comes with limitations around safety, socialisation, and costs for intensive care needs.

The decision between home care and residential care is deeply personal. At Lidder Care, we’ve supported hundreds of families through this choice, and we understand there’s rarely a straightforward answer. This guide explores both the genuine advantages and honest challenges of home care to help you make an informed decision.

What Is Home Care?

Home care is professional support delivered in your loved one’s own home, ranging from a few hours per week to round-the-clock assistance.

The care provided can include:

• Personal care – help with washing, dressing, and toileting
• Companionship care – social interaction and emotional support
• Medication assistance – ensuring medications are taken correctly
• Meal preparation – nutritious cooking and dietary support
• Household tasks – light cleaning, laundry, and tidying
• Errands and shopping – collecting prescriptions and groceries

At Lidder Care, we offer visiting care services with a minimum 30-minute visit length, ensuring there’s adequate time for person-centred care without staff feeling rushed.

“Within a 30-minute time frame, our staff have enough time to communicate with clients without feeling rushed, which is especially beneficial for clients with reduced mobility, sensory needs or dementia. Care can be completed safely, with dignity and respect.”

The Advantages of Home Care

1. Familiar Surroundings Provide Comfort and Security

The most compelling advantage of home care is allowing your loved one to remain in their own home, surrounded by decades of memories and personal belongings. This familiarity offers:

• Emotional wellbeing: Being surrounded by photographs, favourite furniture, and cherished possessions
• Maintained routines: Continuing lifelong habits like morning tea in a favourite chair or gardening in the afternoon
• Pet companionship: Keeping beloved animals, which wouldn’t be possible in most care facilities
• Community connections: Staying connected to neighbours, local shops, and familiar faces
• Sense of control: Feeling ownership of their own space and lifestyle choices

For individuals living with dementia care at home, familiar surroundings can significantly reduce confusion, anxiety, and behavioural challenges. The stability of a known environment provides vital reassurance during cognitive decline.

2. Truly Personalised One-to-One Care

Home care delivers individualised attention that’s difficult to replicate in residential settings. At Lidder Care, we prioritise consistency by aiming to provide the same carer or small team of familiar faces for each client.

“Where possible, we aim to provide consistency of carers, as we know familiar faces help clients feel comfortable and build trust. Many clients are supported by a small, regular team, rather than lots of different carers.”

This personalised approach means:

• Care is tailored precisely to your loved one’s preferences and routines
• Flexibility to adjust schedules and support as circumstances change
• Dedicated carers who build genuine, meaningful relationships
• Freedom to choose daily activities, mealtimes, and sleeping patterns
• No need to adapt to the fixed schedules of a care facility

3. Family Can Stay Fully Involved

Home care makes it easier for families to remain actively engaged in their loved one’s daily life without visiting restrictions or set hours. You can:

• Drop in at any time that suits your schedule
• Participate directly in care routines and decision-making
• Monitor care quality through observation and conversation
• Maintain your natural family dynamics and traditions
• Stay informed through our Nourish Family Portal, where you can view visit times, completed tasks, and read detailed carer notes

“Family members can access the Nourish Family Portal, where they can view visit times and duration, completed tasks, read the carers notes and stay informed about their relative’s wellbeing. This is a valuable function for families who do not live locally or are unable to visit regularly.”

4. Cost-Effective for Lower-Level Support

For individuals requiring limited assistance—perhaps just help with household tasks or a few hours of companionship care weekly—home care can be more economical than residential options. Understanding how much home care costs helps with realistic budgeting.

5. Independence and Dignity Are Preserved

Home care supports independence by providing assistance only where needed, allowing individuals to:

• Make their own choices about how they spend each day
• Maintain hobbies, interests, and social activities
• Continue relationships with friends and neighbours
• Preserve privacy and personal space
• Feel empowered rather than institutionalised

This sense of control significantly impacts mental wellbeing and quality of life, helping people feel they’re living their life rather than being “looked after.”

The Disadvantages of Home Care

1. Safety and Supervision Can Be Limited

Home environments aren’t designed with care in mind and may present safety challenges:

• Gaps in supervision: Unless you arrange live-in care or night care, there will be periods without professional support
• Fall risks: Homes often have stairs, loose rugs, uneven flooring, or poor lighting
• Emergency response: If something goes wrong between carer visits, response times may be slower than in a staffed facility
• Expensive adaptations: Bathrooms may need wet rooms, stairlifts might be required, and doorways may need widening
• Security concerns: Managing access for carers whilst maintaining home security

At Lidder Care, our carers are trained in emergency protocols. For example, if a carer arrives to find a client has fallen, they follow strict assessment procedures, never attempt to lift from the floor (which could worsen injuries), and immediately escalate to emergency services if needed whilst notifying our office to adjust schedules.

2. Social Isolation and Loneliness

Perhaps the most underestimated disadvantage of home care is the risk of social isolation. Unlike care homes where social activities and interactions are built into daily life, home care clients may experience:

• Limited social interaction beyond carer visits
• Reduced access to group activities, entertainment, and stimulation
• Loneliness during uncovered hours, especially evenings and weekends
• Difficulty maintaining friendships if mobility or transport is limited
• Decreased cognitive stimulation and engagement

This isolation can significantly impact mental health, potentially accelerating cognitive decline. It’s a major reason why many families eventually consider care home vs homecare options.

3. Costs Escalate Quickly for Intensive Care

While home care may be economical for minimal support, costs increase substantially as care needs grow. Understanding whether 24-hour care at home is cheaper than a care home reveals the financial reality:

Care Level	Typical Weekly Cost	Comparison to Residential Care
2-3 hours daily visiting care	£400-£600	Generally cheaper than care homes
Multiple daily visits (4+ hours)	£800-£1,200	Comparable to residential care
Live-in care (waking hours)	£1,000-£1,500	Usually more expensive
24-hour care (shift workers)	£2,000-£3,000+	Substantially more expensive

Exploring how to get funding for home care and whether home care is means tested becomes essential as needs increase.

4. Family Members Face Hidden Burdens

Even with professional home care support, families often find themselves:

• Coordinating schedules, managing multiple carers, and handling last-minute changes
• Organising medical appointments and medication reviews
• Dealing with household maintenance, bills, and administrative tasks
• Providing emotional support and companionship during uncovered hours
• Responding to emergencies and unexpected situations
• Making difficult decisions as care needs change

This responsibility can lead to carer fatigue, stress, and strain on family relationships—even when professional support is in place. Many families don’t anticipate this hidden burden when arranging home care.

5. Limited Access to Specialist Resources

Residential care facilities offer resources that are impractical or impossible to replicate at home:

• Specialist equipment like ceiling hoists, assisted baths, and pressure-relieving mattresses
• Professional kitchens providing nutritionally balanced meals tailored to dietary needs
• On-site physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and rehabilitation facilities
• Dedicated activities coordinators and structured social programmes
• Immediate access to nursing care when health deteriorates
• Secure gardens and accessible outdoor spaces designed for safe mobility

6. Challenges as Health Declines

As care needs become more complex, home care can become:

• Logistically complicated to manage effectively
• Difficult to staff with appropriately skilled carers
• Prohibitively expensive to maintain at necessary levels
• Emotionally distressing for families observing decline at close quarters
• Less able to provide the comprehensive, round-the-clock support needed

Many families eventually recognise signs it may be time to consider a care home for your parent, particularly when conditions like dementia progress.

Making the Right Decision for Your Family

Questions to Ask About Your Loved One

• How complex are their current care needs, and how quickly are they changing?
• Are they socially active with regular visitors, or do they struggle with loneliness?
• Do they have cognitive impairments affecting safety awareness?
• How strong is their desire to remain at home versus their practical care needs?
• Can their home be adapted safely, and who will manage this?

Questions to Ask About Your Family

• Can family members realistically provide supplementary support and oversight?
• Are you geographically close enough to respond to emergencies?
• Do you have the emotional capacity to coordinate complex care?
• What’s your budget both now and as needs inevitably increase?
• How will care responsibilities affect your work and other commitments?

Questions About Care Provision

When finding home care, consider asking providers:

• Do you provide consistent carers or a rotating team? (At Lidder Care, we aim for consistency with familiar faces)
• What’s your minimum visit length? (We require 30 minutes minimum for quality, person-centred care)
• Can I access digital care records? (We offer the Nourish Family Portal for real-time updates)
• What happens during carer holidays or illness?
• What emergency protocols do you have in place?

Our comprehensive guide on questions to ask when choosing a home care provider covers this in detail.

Understanding the Alternative: Residential Care

Care homes offer a completely different approach. At Lidder Care, we operate both Newgate Lodge Care Home and Lowmoor Nursing Home, so we can give you honest advice about which option truly suits your situation.

Residential care provides:

Residential care provides:

• 24-hour supervision with trained staff always available
• Built-in social opportunities through activities, dining, and communal spaces
• Comprehensive facilities including specialist equipment
• Predictable, all-inclusive costs with no unexpected bills
• Professional care teams including nurses for medical needs
• Safety and security in purpose-designed environments

The trade-off? Your loved one leaves their family home and adapts to communal living.

Finding a Middle Ground

Many families find that a flexible approach works best:

• Start gradually: Begin with minimal visiting care services and increase as needed
• Use respite care: Try respite home care services to give family carers breaks
• Consider day centres: Combine home care with day centre attendance for social interaction
• Plan transitions: Start with home care with a clear understanding of when residential care might become necessary
• Trial periods: Many providers, including Lidder Care, can arrange trial periods to see how home care works

What Lidder Care Won’t Do

For transparency, there are some tasks our home care team cannot undertake for safety and insurance reasons:

“Typically, our staff are there to focus on personal care, companionship and daily living support. For safety and insurance reasons, there will be tasks staff are unable to carry out that will be considered high risk.”

This means we won’t handle tasks like heavy gardening, dog walking, or certain maintenance work. However, we’re always transparent about this from the outset and can help you arrange alternative solutions.

How Long Does It Take to Arrange Home Care?

Understanding how long to arrange a home care package helps with planning. At Lidder Care, we aim to respond quickly to assessment requests and can often begin care within days for urgent situations, though this depends on individual circumstances and carer availability.

The Bottom Line: There’s No Universal Answer

Home care offers genuine advantages—the comfort of familiar surroundings, personalised attention, and maintained independence—but it also presents real challenges around safety, socialisation, and escalating costs for intensive needs.

Home care may be ideal if:

• Care needs are currently modest and stable
• Your loved one has strong emotional attachment to their home
• Family members can provide regular support and oversight
• The home environment is reasonably safe or can be adapted
• Social connections can be maintained through other means
• Budget allows for care to increase as needed

Residential care might be more appropriate if:

• Care needs are complex, unpredictable, or increasing rapidly
• Safety concerns are significant and difficult to manage at home
• Loneliness and social isolation are major concerns
• 24-hour supervision would provide essential peace of mind
• The costs of intensive home care are becoming prohibitive
• Family members are experiencing carer fatigue or burnout

Our Commitment at Lidder Care

Whether you choose home care services or one of our residential facilities, Lidder Care is committed to providing the highest quality, person-centred support. We understand this decision isn’t easy, and there’s no shame in changing course if circumstances evolve.

The most important thing is ensuring your loved one receives safe, dignified care that enhances their quality of life—whether that’s at home or in a care facility. We’re here to provide honest advice based on our decades of experience supporting families across Nottinghamshire and beyond.

If you’d like to discuss your specific situation and explore what to expect from a good home care provider, our team is here to help with no-obligation advice.