Paying for Care Yourself? Here's Why It Might Be Simpler Than You Think

By Alice Allen, Registered Manager

If you're reading this because you or a relative needs care and you're expecting to pay for it privately, this post is for you specifically. Not every family goes through Shropshire Council's assessment process first, and there's nothing unusual or wrong about arranging care privately from the start. It's often simpler, faster, and gives you considerably more control than people expect.

Why Many Families Choose to Pay Privately

If your capital, savings, investments, and property beyond your main home if it's for residential care, is above the current threshold of £23,250, you would generally be expected to fund your own care anyway. In that situation, many families simply arrange care directly, rather than going through a council needs assessment first purely to be told the same thing.

But self-funding isn't only for people above the threshold. Some families choose to pay privately even when council funding might eventually be available, because:

It's faster. A council needs assessment and financial assessment can take weeks. If you need care starting this week, arranging it privately means it can genuinely start this week.

You have complete choice of provider. Some council-funded arrangements come with a more limited panel of approved providers. Paying privately means you can choose exactly who you want, based on your own research and comfort, not a list handed to you.

You control the care plan directly. What's included, how often visits happen, how the package evolves, all of it is a conversation between you and your provider, without needing a formal reassessment every time something changes.

It's simpler to adjust. Increasing, decreasing, or pausing a privately arranged care package is usually a phone call, not a new assessment process.

None of this means council funding isn't worth exploring. If your financial situation might make you eligible, it's always worth checking, and we've written elsewhere about funding options including Attendance Allowance and NHS Continuing Healthcare, both of which are available regardless of how your ongoing care is arranged. But if you're ready to arrange care now and don't want to wait for an assessment process, paying privately is a completely legitimate and often more straightforward route.

What It Actually Costs

We think transparency matters more here than almost anywhere else, because private payers are often comparing costs without a clear benchmark.

We charge £35 per hour. One flat rate, every day of the week, including weekends and bank holidays, with no mileage charge to reach your home. The Homecare Association, the sector's own membership body, publishes a minimum viable price for homecare of £34.42 per hour for 2026/27, the absolute floor a provider can charge while paying carers properly and meeting basic compliance costs. We sit just above that minimum, and we think that's worth knowing when you're comparing quotes, because a price significantly below it should prompt a direct question about what's being cut to make that number work.

For comparison, a typical care package of a morning visit and a lunchtime check at standard rates might cost £300 to £500 a month. A more intensive package with three visits daily might run £700 to £1,400 a month. Set against residential care, which typically costs £800 to £2,000 or more per week, home care remains considerably less expensive for the majority of people whose needs can be safely met at home.

We'll give you this information before you've committed to anything, over the phone, without a home visit required first. We think you deserve to know the number before you're emotionally invested in a conversation about it.

What to Look for as a Private Payer

Because you're choosing freely, without a council panel narrowing the options, it's worth knowing exactly what to check before committing.

The CQC rating, and the actual report, not just the headline. Every provider's rating and full inspection report are public. Read past the single word.

Whether the price you're quoted is genuinely the full price. Ask specifically about weekend rates, bank holiday rates, mileage charges, and minimum visit lengths before agreeing to anything.

Who actually owns the company. A locally owned, independent provider answers to you directly. A provider that's part of a larger consolidated group or private equity structure answers to shareholders first. We've written at length about why we think this distinction matters more than most families realise.

Whether carers are local. A carer who lives in the area they serve arrives on time and knows the community. One commuting a significant distance does not offer the same reliability.

How consistency of carer actually works. Ask specifically how many different people your relative will see in a typical week, and what happens for holiday or sickness cover.

Getting Started, Without an Assessment

If you're ready to arrange care privately, the process with us is straightforward.

Call us and tell us the situation. We'll talk it through honestly, with no pressure, and tell you plainly whether we think we can help. If it looks like a good fit, we arrange a free home assessment, properly understanding your relative's needs, preferences, and the home environment, and from that we build a genuine, personalised care plan, not a generic package.

There's no requirement to have gone through a council process first. There's no minimum contract, no setup fee, and no obligation beyond the assessment itself.

Private Payers Deserve the Same Honesty as Everyone Else

We publish our prices, our example care plan, and our complete guide to home care for exactly this reason. Families paying privately are making a significant financial decision, often during a stressful and emotional time, and we think the least we can do is make the information genuinely easy to find, rather than something you only discover after the first phone call.

If you're ready to talk, or simply want honest answers before you decide anything, we're here.

📞 01948 411222 — 24 hours, 365 days
✉️ mail@nshomecare.co.uk

North Shropshire Homecare
The Coach House, 15/17 Green End, Whitchurch, SY13 1AD

CQC Rated Good. Independently Owned. Locally Staffed. Transparent pricing, from the first phone call.