Live-in Care Worker FAQs

A full-time, live-in care job will vary from client to client and depend upon your level of experience but essentially it means living with a client in their home and providing round-the-clock care.

A live-in caregiver job description will usually include an outline of expected responsibilities which include companionship, personal care and specialist care for health conditions:

Companionship care may involve:

• Support and encouragement to empower your client to lead an independent lifestyle.
• Providing full-time companionship and conversation.
• Meal preparation and cooking.
• Light domestic tasks and general household duties such as cleaning, bed making, laundry and ironing.
• Accompanying clients to appointments, social engagements and errands such as shopping.
• Pet care.
• Communicating with family, friends and other healthcare professionals on their behalf.

Personal care may involve:

• Washing, bathing, showering and oral care.
• Dressing and preparation for the day.
• Toileting and continence management.
• Assistance with eating.
• Assisting, administering or prompting with medication.
• Use of moving and handling equipment (after training) if a client is unable to mobilise on their own.
• Working closely with other care professionals such as District Nurses and GPs.
• Assisting clients with their night-time routine, including undressing and washing.
• Recording and Reporting.

When you work for a care agency, like Trinity Homecare, you will be trained to the best possible standard of professionalism. Our learning and development programme and ongoing training is second to none and is becoming recognised as such throughout the industry. We support all of our care workers in their career and are very keen for you to continually develop your skills.

When you work as a private carer, you can miss the support of other colleagues who understand and appreciate your work. At Trinity Homecare, we take great care in providing you with emotional support every step of the way. We’re always on the end of the phone if you’ve got any questions or just feel the need to check in with someone who’s been there – most of our team – and all of our trainers are either carers themselves, (or have been in the recent past), so they really understand your needs.

We’ll also always negotiate top rates of pay for you. We benchmark all of our pay against our competitors to make sure we’re always paying in the top quarter of the industry.

We also truly value our live-in carers for the elderly and like to reward and give recognition when it’s due.

And lastly (but certainly not least!), we’re a friendly bunch and we always welcome newcomers to live-in care. So why not give one of our team a call? We’d love to hear from you!

Caring is a very satisfying vocation for hundreds of thousands of people. Some simply enjoy helping others and take the physical and emotional demands of a care job in their stride, others have their hearts in the right place but realise that the work may be beyond them. 

To be a successful in-home carer, you need the right amount of maturity and passion for the job. You also need the presence of mind to deal with changing and sometimes demanding situations. Take a look at some of our case studies to find out what it takes.

Most of our clients are elderly and many are confused or in poor health, so you must be capable of patience and good humour at all times. You will be a genuinely compassionate person; always dependable and with plenty of common sense.

There is no upper age limit to becoming a Trinity live-in caregiver but you should be energetic and fit enough to, for example, assist your clients with bathing or to push them in their wheelchair.

You must be prepared to put your social life on hold for the duration of your live-in care bookings. You should be a reasonable cook (or be ready to invest in an English cookbook!) You must be happy to do housework and laundry and to keep the home you are staying in clean and tidy. More experienced in-home carers must be prepared to undertake personal care such as helping people to wash, dress and use the toilet.

You must understand, speak and write English very well and when you’re just starting out you’ll be allocated less demanding, more ‘companionship’ type roles.

If you work for Trinity Homecare, we will remain in close contact with you throughout your time with us and we’ll always be thinking about you for prospective bookings. Before you decide to take a job, we’ll run through everything with you and make sure you’re fully briefed about the client.

Clients often have a car they want the live-in carer to drive on their behalf but it is essential that if you accept a booking where you are expected to drive, please make sure your driving licence is valid and up to date and that the client arranges the appropriate insurance cover for you.

As a live-in carer, you’ll work an average of eight to ten-hour days (not necessarily consecutive hours) a day but you’ll need to be on hand to help the client if needed.

You’ll also always have a two-hour break (off the premises) every day and you’re also never expected to work through the night. (If a client needs support throughout the night, there’ll usually be a non-resident carer from a local agency for waking night duty.)

On average, most live-in carers will work between six and a half and seven days a week.

As a live-in carer, you will be employed and paid directly by us. Our pay rates and terms and conditions are highly competitive, as we benchmark our pay against our competitors to ensure we are always paying in the top 25% and are among the highest-paid live in jobs in the UK. Your salary will be discussed at your interview and set out in writing in any job offer we make.

Generally speaking, a live in-home care salary will vary, depending on experience and the level of support a client requires.

Additional payments are normally made for Public and Bank Holidays, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. A live-in caregiver will also receive free room and board with their client when on booking and return travel expenses from London Zone 1 when starting the job.

Live-in carers for the elderly are employees of Trinity and we deduct your taxes and national insurance contributions at source under Pay As You Earn (PAYE).

There aren’t really any weekend live-in care jobs. If you want to work the weekends as a carer, you may be more suited to our daily home care service (otherwise known as visiting care). There may be shorter assignments, however, under our Respite Care service. Find out more by calling one of our recruitment team.

Please ensure you provide the following items for your live-in care interview:

• Proof of identification & eligibility to work in the UK
• Passport/s, EU identity card, or photographic driving license
• Proof of eligibility to work in the UK (e.g. visa for non-EU passport holders)
• Proof of address in the UK (e..g bank, credit card statement or utility bill less than 3 months old)
• UK Birth certificate (if applicable)
• National insurance number (e.g. card or job centre letter or payslip stating the number)
• Valid driving licence. For UK licenses this is both your paper counterpart and the photocard. Alternatively, your foreign license allowing you to drive in the UK (with your original International license)
• Details of your Skills & Experience
• Your full CV covering an up to date full working history
• Documentation proof to support your application, for example, qualification certificates
• Credit/Debit Card to support your DBS application
• £55.98 to pay for your Enhanced DBS (previously known as Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) Disclosure) and an Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) Audit First check

If there are difficulties with a booking or a clash of personalities between the live-in carer and client, either party should contact Trinity and a replacement live-in carer can be introduced as soon as possible.

It is important to remember that sometimes there can be some early settling down issues and our highly experienced live-in care managers can help you work through this.

live-in carers should never leave a booking until a replacement arrives and a proper handover has taken place.

In the highly unlikely event that a client asks a live-carer to leave their premises immediately you should do so but please call our office/on-call team immediately for advice. You should also contact the next of kin if your client will otherwise be left alone.

Yes, of course, we welcome both male and female live-in carers for the elderly! Many of our clients enjoy men providing live-in care for them and there are plenty of jobs available across the UK. Check out our current vacancies here.

After you have successfully completed a formal interview and before you begin work as an in-home carer, we’ll need to follow up with your references. It may speed their return if you forewarn your referees we will be contacting them.

We also process Enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB/ DBS) Disclosures for each live-in carer for the elderly, but once we have completed our checks you will be ready to start work as soon as the client agrees on a start date.

We take great care in matching our carers to our clients and the start date can depend on finding the right placement for you, but normally this is within a week or two.

If you get a buzz from making a difference in someone else’s life, then you can be sure you will find our home care work rewarding.

Live-in care is also a great way to travel. Not only will you get to explore the UK, living and working with many different people as you do but flexible working means you can take an extended break if you decide you want to travel the world.

We have many people from across the world working for us and as long as all your paperwork is current, we welcome everybody!

For more thoughts on the benefits of becoming a carer in somebody’s home, read what one of our live-in carers has to say.

As an in-home carer, you will have to leave your own home behind for often extended periods of time. 

If your home is either empty or the people you live with are unable to pay council tax, then you will become exempt from having to pay when you leave your residence to provide live-in care.

Care work with Trinity offers a great opportunity to see Britain and Europe while earning good money to pay for it all.

You will need to prove to us that you have the right to work in the UK before we can begin to look for work on your behalf. Therefore, if you are from another country and thinking of finding work in Britain please ensure you meet all the necessary requirements before you apply and that you prepare fully before you leave your home country.

The main requirement for all overseas applicants is that they can speak and understand English to a high standard. This is particularly true for in-home carers as you work for clients in their own homes. Our clients are mostly elderly and often have short-term memory loss, hard of hearing or mobility problems with complicated needs. Sometimes they live a long way from their families and their live-in carer is their only regular link with the world. It is important that our clients can hold a conversation and relate to the person who is living in their home.

Before you apply it will also help to have a valid EU, UK, International or another valid driving licence; and a valid UK visa (if applicable). Room and board are provided when you are working as a live-in carer but bear in mind that you will need somewhere to stay between bookings.