Live in care advice?

Hi, wonder if anyone here can help with a question.

I’m a personal assistant, caring for a woman with MS, who lives alone in her own home.

Currently she has been assessed to require about 28 hours a week of care at her home, which is funded (she gets direct payments, and employs me directly 5 days a week, a care agency provides the other 2 days)

She’s currently asked to be assessed for more hours care which she needs (at the moment i help out a bit in my own time, otherwise she would have real problems)

Obviously with MS, it will deteriorate over time, and she may need more and more care in future, and possibly live in care at some point.

So does anybody know - how does live-in care work. (funded by social services - or whoever it is who currently funds her care at home - i’m not really knowledgable about how that side of it all works)

Do social services have to assess her and decide at some point she needs live in care?
Does she request that she wants this at some point when she feels she can’t cope alone?
Does anybody know how many hours a live-in carer is paid for? Is this something social services would decide when makign an assessment?

She has said she would like me to be her live in carer if this happens, and i’d happily consider it, but at present neither of us really knows how this sort of thing works. At the moment it’s not urgent, but we both know that over time, she will be less and less able to cope with living alone.

I think I read somewhere that a personal assistant isn’t supposed to be a member of your household (not sure if that varies in different parts of the country) - we’re not sure if this means just a family member, or if it means anyone living at the same address - so if that’s correct, presumably my employment would have to change from beign employed as a personal assistant to a new role as live in carer, if social services decided she needed it.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Hi Neil.

A live in carer ?

Plenty to consider if ever contemplating that role.

This forum is for family / kinship carers … not paid care workers … some of us have outside care provided by the various supporting
circus out there … a few will also directly employ care workers.

Wearing OUR hat … and everything that goes with our role … what are you seeking from us ?

( Bearing in mind that the 1 in 11 who can claim Carers Allowance , receive £ 66.15 per week … for a minimum of 35 hours caring …
with NO upper limit on the hours spent caring ! One also loses that when the state pension kicks in … all caring done afterwards is free.

No age limits … as young as 5 , as old as 103 … both reported cases.

Employment Law ? Does NOT apply to us. )