Home help for the elderly – daily admin support

Written by Zenya Smith • 11/11/24

What is a home help?

Home help services provide practical, physical, or emotional support with daily tasks in a person’s home. This may be through a charity or voluntary service, a care provider, or a private self-employed professional.

Types of home help:

Help with housekeeping

Help with meals and cooking

Companionship and staying social

What is life admin?

Life admin refers to the everyday tasks that are needed to run a household. While they’ve always been a fact of life, as we get older they can become increasingly difficult to manage alone.

Many essential services are moving online. While convenient for younger people, this can be difficult or overwhelming for older people who aren’t as tech-savvy, or don’t own a computer.

Hearing or vision issues can make it difficult to make phone calls or read important information and paperwork.

Paperwork can be confusing at the best of times. Understanding complex language, terms and conditions, and price breakdowns can be even harder if you’re prone to confusion or are living with early-stage dementia.

Forgetting things can have a big impact. It’s normal for people to experience some issues with memory as they age. However, forgetting things like ordering a prescription or paying a bill can have a serious impact on health or quality of life.

Mental health issues can make admin seem overwhelming. Anxiety and depression can impact a person’s motivation to complete daily tasks, and the longer they leave them, the more overwhelming they can become.

Luckily, many elderly care services and charities offer help with life admin tasks. This may include things like –

Online shopping and arranging meal delivery services
Making and attending appointments
Using technology
Dealing with paperwork
Making phone calls
Managing prescriptions
Cancelling unwanted subscriptions
Arranging for things to be fixed around the home
Keeping in touch with friends and family
Sending birthday cards and letters

Helping an older loved one with admin tasks

The first step if you think a loved one is feeling overwhelmed with admin is to make a list of everything that needs attention each month. for example –

Utility bills – do they have direct debits set up? Do they pay at a post office? Or, do they have a top up metre?
Banking – how often do they need to go to a local branch? How comfortable are they doing things online or over the phone? Do they know and keep their passwords and account information in a safe place?
Standing orders and direct debits – can they account for everything? Is there anything going out that they can’t explain or don’t recognise?
Subscription services – Unfortunately older people can be convinced to sign up or upgrade to services they don’t need. Check if they’re using and getting value from a subscription service, or if it needs to be cancelled.
Insurance – are they on top of their renewals and getting the best deal?
Medical appointments & prescriptions – are they up to date with appointments? Have they registered with a repeat prescription service? Could they benefit from getting their medication delivered to their home from their local pharmacy?

Make sure you're authorised to help them with admin

If your loved one is happy for you to do so, ask about getting added to their accounts. In the UK most banks will allow an account holder to set up an authorised user or third party mandate – giving someone they trust access to view recent transactions, set spending limits on debit cards, and make payments i.e bills.

You may also agree to have access to their email account or set up email forwarding so that you can stay in the loop about when bills or renewals are due.

Teach them how to stay safe

Unfortunately scams are becoming a lot more sophisticated and it can be easy for an older person to be caught out by a scam call, text or email. Advise them not to respond to anything they weren’t expecting no matter how convincing it may be, and especially if it’s offering them a rebate. Insist that they don’t click on any links, and if they’re feeling pressured to give personal account details over the phone, let them know it’s best to hang up and call the company back using the number listed on their official website, or a past letter.

For more advice on staying safe from scams and fraudsters, take a look at our guide.

How to access home help services

Some organisations specialise in admin assistance. For example certain regional Age UK centres offer Home Admin Services, to help older people pay bills on time and manage their day-to day affairs. Services start from £20 per hour, and you can often get a discounted rate if you need more than a couple of hours at a time.

If your loved one is comfortable using a computer, for example if they use one to keep in touch with family and friends, they may benefit from using a virtual assistant (VA) to ease the admin load.

These professionals provide online support – usually via video call or email, for a wide variety of personal and household needs. You can hire a VA for a few hours a week or on an ad-hoc basis when tasks start to pile up. The most common way to find a VA is through a marketplace website like Spare My Time. Virtual administrative assistant work is popular among women in their mid-life, who no longer work 9-5 but are keen to take on occasional jobs they can do from home. Costs start from around £25 per hour. However, these professionals are usually always self-employed, meaning rates can differ depending on their location, availability and skills.

If your loved one is looking to grow their digital skills to keep on top of admin then Action for Elders’ Digital Inclusion Services could help. Set up to provide free support to older people who feel ‘locked out’ of online services, the charity runs both in-person and online sessions across the UK. From feeling confident accessing banking apps, to ordering the weekly shop online, they cover a wide range of topics via their tutorials.

More about Action for Elders

Find a local home carer with Elder

Elder is an award leading platform that matches self-employed carers to families and older people needing a wide range of support. With Elder you can –

Can a home carer provide admin support?

Yes, and if you need regular weekly help with other daily activities such as cooking or personal care, arranging visits from a home carer may be the most cost effective option.

Visiting care is when a carer visits a client in their home for an hour or so at a time, to provide practical support. These care costs are comparable to administrative support services, with rates starting at around £20 per hour.
Many social care professionals offer a certain level of admin assistance as standard, as these tasks are integral to a person’s daily routine and well-being. For example, managing the daily diary, helping with shopping or popping to the post office are all common tasks a visiting carer can help with. They’ll do this alongside daily household tasks too, such as light cleaning, and preparing meals.

If you have specific admin tasks in mind that you’d like help with, hiring a self-employed carer may be the most suitable solution. This is because they’re likely to be more flexible than a care agency in terms of the tasks they take on and the time they spend with your loved one. A care agency will usually create a stricter care plan, and most carers will visit multiple clients a day, meaning there’s less time available for them to assist with non-personal care tasks.

If you’re seeking support from a self-employed professional, it’s important that you do a thorough background check, especially if they’re going to be helping you file paperwork or handle your prescriptions medications. Ensuring they have a clean enhanced DBS, and can provide at least two professional references is recommended. If you’re unsure where to start with this, Elder can help.

Peggy and Denise's story

Peggy is living with Alzheimer's and needs regular help to keep on top of things. Below her daughter shares how their carer Denise not only provides exceptional domiciliary care, but goes above and beyond with additional admin support.

"Denise enhances Mum’s life. In some cases this involves driving Mum 40 miles for family visits and pub meals. On other occasions she collects one of Mum’s friends for tea parties or dinner, allowing the ladies to have a good catch up and natter. Denise engages Mum in craft projects such as making Christmas or Easter decorations and has played a full role in refreshing Mum’s wardrobe with suitably cheery, well priced additions, combining this with ‘pamper days’ when practical.

A few weeks ago Mum looked at the newspaper and remarked that the date was her wedding anniversary. They reminisced about the wedding day and life with Dad. Denise then went out to buy flowers matching the colours of her bouquet and returned to cook her her typical anniversary meal.‘ ‘Clearly going beyond the normal boundaries – there was a case when there had been a problem with the car; rather than pushing the problem back for us to sort at a distance, she researched local garages, their reputations and prices before making her recommendations to us. This was eased further by her even having haggled the price down for branded tyres!‘ ‘So, definitely not your typical carer, definitely a most appreciated part of ‘Team Peggy’."

Visiting care

Home help for the elderly – daily admin support

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What is a home help?

What is life admin?

Helping an older loved one with admin tasks