Looking for respite care?

Respite care is a short term care package generally used to provide a break for individuals who are caring for loved ones. Respite care is offered by all types of social care providers; both care homes and home care services can offer this type of support, subject to availability.

Respite care can last anywhere from a couple of days through to a couple of months; the most common use of respite care is to provide a family with support to care for a loved one whilst a holiday is taken. Most care providers consider convalescent care in the same way they do respite. Providing the care service has availability they can support individuals to convalesce after an illness or hospital operation, such as a hip replacement.

Generally respite care can only be booked a couple of weeks before the care is needed, most care providers would recommend contacting them two to three weeks before the support is needed. Most residential care services do not hold a dedicated respite bed, instead they will offer a room only if one is available during the required period. This can sometimes be problematic for people who are trying to arrange holidays in the future and are looking for assurances that the respite care can be put in place.

Respite care can also be used as a great introduction to long term residential care, many residential care services offer several weeks of respite care with a view to role the care package into a full time placement if successful and the resident settles. Lots of families choose this option to break the ice with a family member who needs care.

Respite care is not just something that is offered by residential care homes or nursing homes, many home care services will also offer a short term package of care subject to availability at the time. If your loved one only requires light support with meal preparation or simply companionship, home care could provide the right solution.

If you would like to have a respite stay funded by the Council, it is important that you have an assessment carried out by Social Services on both yourself as a carer (carer's assessment) and the person who you are looking after (needs assessment).  Your Local Council, however, will only provide funding for respite care to those who they have assessed as requiring it. Should the assessments conclude that you do qualify for needing respite care, a financial assessment will be carried out to determine how much the Council will pay towards it.

If you are looking for further advice or guidance on respite care, please view some of our useful articles below or contact one of our specialist Care Advisers.