Live-in care – how to find the right dementia carer

Making private arrangements for dementia care

You may already know someone you want to employ to be a private carer and provide 24/7 care for your loved one. There can be advantages to this, mainly if it’s someone that the care recipient already knows and trusts. However, there can also be challenges in going down this route.

Employing a private carer means you’re responsible for providing a contract of employment for them, paying at least the minimum wage and managing their tax and national insurance affairs. Even if you know someone, background checks should still be carried out, especially a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), to ensure there is no reason they could be unsuitable to work with a vulnerable adult with dementia. Employing a friend or family carer can also impact your relationship with them, as there must be set employment conditions.

You could advertise for someone to provide home care for your loved one. If you do this, you will need to conduct further extensive background checks, ensure that they’re legally entitled to work in the UK and take up two written references, preferably one from their most recent employer. As an employer, you would be responsible for paying holiday and sick pay as appropriate.

The person you employ must have experience and training in specialist care and Alzheimer’s care and not only general elderly care. They will need to know how to maintain your loved one’s dignity and support their independent living as far as possible. Specialist training will ensure that they can cope with the challenging behaviour that those living with dementia can exhibit.

If you decide to make private care arrangements such as this, you must also consider what happens when the carer needs time off, holidays or is ill. Unless you can take over the care of your loved one temporarily, you will need to find a suitable carer for respite care who can provide dementia care with the same level of care until their regular carer returns.

Using an introduction care agency

An introduction agency is similar to finding your private elderly care, but here, some of the preliminary work is carried out by the agency. Background checks should be conducted, and some agencies train the carers they introduce. You may still have to take on the legal responsibilities of being an employer, such as liability insurance, and may also need to make provisions for holidays and sickness.

Using a private care provider

A reputable care provider will ensure that your loved one’s carer has all the experience and training they need to deliver effective dementia care. In addition to background checks and training.

The care provider employs the carer, so you do not have to worry about income tax, national insurance, sick pay or holiday pay. The fees you pay include all this and day-to-day management and supervision. The company will also provide a contact number you can use at any time if you have concerns about any aspect of your loved one’s care.

Carers employed by private care providers usually work on a rota, so there may be two carers looking after your loved one and working a pattern such as two weeks on and two weeks off. They will both be carefully selected to suit your loved one and provide continuity of care fitting the care plan, which can significantly benefit people with dementia. When a carer is on holiday or off sick, the other can cover, so there is always someone familiar around.

Questions to ask a potential dementia carer

1. What were the highlights and challenges of your previous job?
2. Have you had any prior experience caring for people with dementia? If so, please share your experiences.
3. What personality type do you think an individual must have to be a compassionate caregiver?
4. What are your strongest character traits? What are your weakest character traits?
5. What would you do if a person with dementia refused help?
6. What would you do if a person with dementia began to wander at night?
7. Describe a time when your organizational skills came into play.
8. How would your friends describe you?
9. What made you interested in being a caregiver?

You may also want to ask some situational questions based on your loved one’s dementia symptoms or behaviours. These may include things like: 

1. Mum sometimes hallucinates that she can smell smoke and gets very frightened by it. How would you respond to this? 
2. Dad keeps getting up in the middle of the night and tries to leave the house. We keep the door locked, but he gets extremely agitated when he can’t open it. How would you encourage him to stay in bed and calm him down? 
3. At the moment, mum isn’t keen on a lot of the meals she used to enjoy, how would you encourage her to eat enough? 
4. Dad sometimes accuses people of taking his things if he misplaces them. How would handle the situation if he accused you?