Most people arrive at this needing two different things: a way to work out what care would actually help, and answers to the ordinary practical worries underneath it. Both are here, and none of it asks you to have decided anything.
Choosing care
Four ways to work out what would help
There is no right order to do these in. Start wherever your question is.
Four things that make more difference than almost anything a care agency does — and none of them requires you to be receiving care.
Preventing falls
Falls are the single most common reason an older person’s independence changes suddenly, and most of what prevents them is unglamorous. Strength and balance matter more than caution: the NHS advises activities that improve both, at least twice a week.
The rest is the house and the body. Clear the floor of anything that can be tripped over, get the lighting right on stairs and landings, and wear shoes that fit and grip rather than slippers that do neither.
Have your eyes tested and your hearing checked regularly.
Ask a GP or pharmacist to review your medicines — some cause dizziness, and several together can cause more.
Grab rails beside a toilet or in a shower are among the cheapest changes that work, and a council must provide minor adaptations costing £1,000 or less free of charge.
A personal alarm or a phone kept within reach matters most for what happens after a fall, not before it.
Tell a GP if you have fallen, or if you are worried about your balance — a fall is information, not just bad luck.
If someone takes several medicines, their GP surgery can arrange a free structured medication review with a pharmacist. It is worth asking for: it is the appointment where you can raise, in confidence, that something is not being taken or is not agreeing with them.
A pharmacist can also supply a complicated regime in a dosette box, so what to take and when is visible rather than remembered. Automatic dispensers, labelled packs and phone reminders all exist and none of them suits everybody.
Keep medicines in one place, ideally a locked cupboard or drawer.
Ask whether a repeat prescription can go straight to the pharmacy, so it is not a task somebody has to remember.
If tablets are hard to swallow, ask whether the same medicine comes as a liquid, a soluble form or a patch.
Never give someone medicine without their consent, and never try to force it. A person has the right to refuse — and refusing is worth reporting to the GP rather than working around.
Age UK teaches four words for the front door, and they are worth having in the hallway rather than in a leaflet: stop, lock, chain, check. Stop and think whether you are expecting anybody. Lock the back door before you open the front. Put the chain on. Check any identity card — and check it by ringing the company on a number from a bill, never a number the caller gives you.
National Trading Standards finds that the large majority of doorstep scam victims are over 65. That is not a reason to be frightened of the door; it is a reason to have a rule for it.
Never buy from someone who turns up uninvited, and never sign anything on the day.
Ask the council for a "no cold callers" sticker, and set a password with utility companies.
Nobody legitimate will ever ask you to hand over a bank card, a PIN or cash at the door.
If a call about your money feels wrong, hang up and dial 159 — a short code that connects you to your own bank and cannot be faked.
If you think you have been scammed, tell your bank, then report it to Report Fraud — the police reporting service that used to be called Action Fraud. Call 999 if someone is at the door and you feel threatened, or 101 if they have gone.
Loneliness is not a soft subject on a care page. It changes appetite, sleep and how likely somebody is to mention that something hurts, and it is one of the things a regular visit is genuinely good at.
There is also free help that has nothing to do with buying care. Age UK runs a telephone friendship service — a volunteer who rings at an agreed time for a chat — and local branches arrange face-to-face befriending and trips out.
Carers have rights of their own, and they are easy to miss because nothing in the system announces them. These four are the ones most often left unclaimed.
You have your own right to an assessment
If you look after someone, the council must assess your needs as a carer — separately from theirs, and regardless of either of your finances. You can ask for one before anything has gone wrong, and it can consider needs you expect to have rather than only the ones you have now.
The test is easier than the one applied to the person you care for, and the assessment must consider whether you are able and willing to keep caring, and have regard to your work, education, training and time to yourself.
You can be assessed as needing support even if the person you care for is found not to be eligible, or refuses to be assessed at all.
Councils do not usually charge carers for support provided to them, and Hounslow does not.
Respite is simply somebody else doing the caring for a while. It can be a few hours a week from a paid carer, a day service, a sitting service, or a short stay somewhere — and a break planned in advance is worth more than one taken when you have run out.
A council will normally fund respite only where an assessment has found it is needed, which is the practical reason to have the carer’s assessment above rather than to soldier on. Where it is not funded, people commonly pay for it from savings, a pension or Attendance Allowance.
Carer’s Allowance is for people providing at least 35 hours of care a week to someone receiving a qualifying disability benefit. Check it before you claim it rather than after: it is taxable, it has an earnings limit that works as a cliff edge, and it can stop a severe disability addition the person you care for is receiving.
Carer’s Credit protects your National Insurance record where you care for at least 20 hours a week but cannot claim the allowance.
A free benefits check will look at both of your entitlements together, which is the only way to see whether a household actually gains.
The person you care for may be able to claim Attendance Allowance or Personal Independence Payment whether or not anybody is paid to look after them.
Tell your GP surgery that you are a carer and ask to be added to its carers register. It is a small administrative act with real consequences: it is how you get flexible appointments, a flu vaccination as a carer, and a surgery that understands why you keep cancelling.
Ask, too, what happens if you are suddenly not there — an emergency plan for the person you care for is a thing councils and carers services help write, and it is easier to do calmly than urgently.
Sometimes suddenly, more often slowly. Both are worth knowing what to do about.
If someone has fallen
Do not rush to lift them. Call 999 if they may have injured their head, back, neck or hip, if they cannot get up, or if they are in a lot of pain — and stay with them until help arrives, keeping them warm.
If they are not hurt and can get up, let them do it slowly and in stages, using stable furniture rather than being pulled. Somebody who is on the floor and waiting should try to move gently every half hour or so if they can.
Tell the GP either way. A fall that caused no injury is still the most useful early warning the system gets.
Ask about reablement before the discharge, not after it. Where a council or the NHS provides intermediate care or reablement, it must be free for up to six weeks — though it is a specific short-term service you have to be assessed as needing, not an automatic entitlement to six weeks of free care.
Nobody should be discharged without a plan for the support they need at home, and you can ask for a care needs assessment before leaving as well as afterwards.
Most care decisions are not made after a crisis; they are made after months of noticing. Meals skipped, post unopened, the same story told twice in an afternoon, a bathroom that has quietly become difficult. None of those is a reason to take over, and all of them are a reason to ask.
A care plan is meant to change. If visits are no longer the right length, at the right time, or doing the right things, that is a review rather than a complaint — ask for one.
Who to call, and when
For anything life-threatening, call 999. For urgent medical advice that is not an emergency, NHS 111 is available day and night. For a GP matter, the surgery.
If you are worried that an adult is being abused or neglected, contact the council’s adult safeguarding team — or the police if someone is in immediate danger. You do not need to be certain before you raise it.
None of these organisations sells care, and none of them has any interest in what you decide. For anything about money — assessments, benefits, what a council may pay — our advice and funding guides go into it properly.
The council’s own support for people caring for someone in the borough.
Talk to our care team
Still not sure what would help?
That is the usual position, not an unusual one. Tell us what is happening and we will talk it through — what care could look like, what it would not solve, and who else you may want to speak to first.
You can contact us for yourself, a family member or someone you support professionally.
