Last Updated: March 27, 2026
Beth Britton looks at the differences between the two main types of professional care services and provides tips and advice for families looking for care
If you need care for yourself or a relative, the most important question will often be what type of care are you are going to have? There are benefits and considerations to all types of care, and you may find you need to try different options before you find the one that is right for your relative and family.
This article will explore the most common types of professional care services and provide information and advice to inform decision-making. Making decisions about care can be emotional so I’d recommend reading ‘The emotional rollercoaster of care decision-making’ if researching care is a sensitive topic for you.
General considerations for all types of care
Personalisation is incredibly important in care and support. All care providers should work with families in the creation and review of care and support plans to ensure their professional services are fully tailored to each individual. Many care providers now use digital platforms that enable families to log-in and/or receive notifications about their relative’s care, and if a provider you approach uses these ask for a demonstration of how they work.
All care providers should take their time to get to know the person and their family and take an active interest in the person’s likes, dislikes, hobbies and activities, often through doing life story work with the person and their family. Do ask any prospective care provider how they get to know the people they support and their approach to life story work.
Care professionals in all settings should do their utmost to ensure that they work around your relative’s own routines and needs rather than expecting your relative to fit into the provider’s schedules. This might include things like mealtimes and getting up/bed times. Always ask how your relative’s preferences will be supported in their home or care home to ensure that the care being provided is going to work for them day-to-day.
Care providers who provide regulated care – like personal care – are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission – you can view CQC ratings and reports on the CQC website. It isn’t advisable to engage with unregulated and unmanaged care due to the risks posed to both the person needing care and their family.
Care professionals in all settings should have regular supervision and be fully trained (including specialist training if they are engaging in condition-specific support, IE: for people with dementia, learning disabilities, brain injuries, motor neurone disease etc). Care professionals should also have a good command of written and spoken English to ensure effective communication between the person and those supporting them. Where your relative’s first language isn’t English, it would be advisable to check with prospective care providers to find out if they have staff who will be able to communicate in the language being spoken by your relative.
Costs and funding options vary greatly depending on the personal circumstances of the person needing care. Please view this article from Care Choices that explores this topic in-depth: Paying for Care.
Home care benefits and considerations
Home care (domiciliary care) is the option that many people consider first when thinking about care. Care at home means your relative will have their needs met in their own home and life will remain much like it has been with the addition of regular visits from a home care professional. Your relative can also remain living with a partner and pets if they are in the home too.
How regular the visits from care professionals will be depends on your relative’s needs – it could be once or twice a day or more. Good practice in terms of duration is that care visits should be one hour or more each – this will enable your relative to have the support they need without being rushed. How the person’s needs are being met during visits should remain under constant review and you should be advised if care needs are increasing.
Types of care can range from general companionship to end-of-life care and many care agencies offer specialist support for people with dementia, Parkinson’s, cancer and other conditions. Staff should be able to provide everything from personal care to medication management, meal preparation to support with hobbies and activities.
Remaining at home can be particularly helpful if your relative has any type of cognitive impairment due to it being a more familiar space. Doing some environmental work within the home environment can further enhance these benefits – This guide from the Alzheimer’s Society gives tips and ideas for environmental modifications. Your home care agency should also be able to advise if any modifications are needed at home that require the input from an OT or other specialist, and what help – if any – is available from your local authority for home adaptations.
Home care can sometimes become unworkable if the person’s care needs increase beyond what their provider can support, or if the home itself becomes unsuitable for the person’s escalating care needs. It may also need to end if there is a reliance on family members to provide care when care professionals aren’t visiting and family members aren’t able to do this.
Live-in care benefits and considerations
The benefits of live-in care are broadly similar to those of home care but with the additional element of having a professional living in your relative’s home full-time. This provides everyone with the comfort of knowing that your relative isn’t alone.
Live-in care professionals offer a range of support from personal care, medication management and facilitating hobbies to light housework, laundry and cooking, and offer company and companionship for your relative too. Live-in carers can help with day trips, perhaps even holidays, and weekly tasks like grocery shopping and trips to local community events like hobby clubs. Specialist support for conditions like dementia, stroke recovery, frailty, and palliative/end of life care is also possible.
Having a live-in carer will provide good continuity of care but that person will need days off, meaning that other relief carer(s) will come to live in your relative’s home at those times.
For live-in care to work you’ll need a property suitable for the needs of the professional carer – they will need their own bedroom etc. The matching of the live-in carer to the person is vital for the relationship and the sharing of the living space to work effectively. Good matching should consider things like shared interests, hobbies and cultural considerations, and any relief carer(s) who come to live in the home during the main carer’s time off should also be well-matched.
Live-in care can break down if the relationship with the live-in carer isn’t optimal or the home becomes unsuitable for increasing care needs.
Care home benefits and considerations
A care home is the perfect option if your relative has expressed a desire to have the company of peers and the increased social interaction of communal living. A care home is also a good choice if your relative wants to know that there are professionals around to support their needs at any time of the day or night. Moving into a care home may become a necessity if your relative’s health and/or mobility declines and remaining at home isn’t feasible, or if visits from home care professionals aren’t frequent enough for what your relative needs – for example if they need full-time nursing care.
As with care-at-home options, care homes offer many different types of care from residential to nursing, and many care homes offer specialist support for people with dementia and other injuries and disabilities that need caring for in an environment that is fully equipped to support each person safely and effectively. Many care homes now use technology, like monitoring systems in bedrooms, to enhance their falls-prevention work and pick up on difficulties residents are having as early as possible.
A range of different professionals often work in care homes – from care staff and nurses through to OT’s and physios, alongside housekeeping, catering and activities professionals. They may well also have visiting professionals like hairdressers and chiropodists and will likely offer an in-house activity programme to keep residents active and engaged. The environment should be clean and adapted to the needs of the people living in the care home.
Important considerations include continuity of care – in a care home your relative is likely to have care from many different people, although best practice would be to provide as much continuity of care as possible. There will likely be a smaller team at night than during the daytime.
With a move into a care home, your relative will also need to leave most of their possessions behind, although the care home should support your relative to personalise their room including by bringing items from home such as furnishings, pictures etc. Pets aren’t usually allowed in care homes, and moving into a care home may also mean leaving a partner at home, although where people in a marriage/partnership both need care they may be able to have a double room to enable them to remain together.
Making your decision
No one can tell you what is right for your relative and your family. My key advice would be to be guided first and foremost by what your relative wants as much as is practically possible. If circumstances dictate (often in a crisis) that it’s impossible for your relative to remain living in their own home (this was the case for my dad) then the decision will largely be made for you. However, some important considerations that can help you to avoid being in a crisis include:
- Complete a Power of Attorney whilst family members are fit and well. This can help to document what the person wants for their care if the Health and Welfare POA is completed, giving family members a good understanding of their relative’s wishes in advance of decision-making.
- Research care providers in your local area before you need them. This will give you and your relative a chance to visit home care agencies (many have offices in town centres and high streets) and care homes before you need them, enabling you to ask questions and understand more about what they offer and how the different types of care ‘feel’ to you. Being able to use your instincts in a calm and relaxed way instead of acting at pace in a stressful situation often results in better decision-making.
- Don’t delay getting more ‘low level’ care. Home care visits that are for the purposes of companionship or help with light duties and minimal personal care can help everyone to get used to working with care professionals and enable your relative to maintain routines and remain as independent as possible for as long as possible. Leaving seeking care until the person is struggling a lot or there is an incident – like a fall – often results in less choice of care provider, especially if the most popular agencies in your area have a waiting list.
- If you aren’t in a crisis situation, utilise options like respite care to ‘test’ if you like a particular type of care before committing to it long term. Gather feedback from your relative as well as being fully involved in the delivery of the respite care package yourself so you can get a good idea of whether you’d want this care provider in your life full-time. Read this article I wrote for Care Choices ‘Finding replacement, restorative, respite care’ for more information about respite care.
- Obtain professional advice, in advance of needing care, to understand fully what your options are, and seek a care needs assessment at your earliest opportunity if care is needed now.
