Home Care in Barnet

Can I get visiting home care in Barnet from a Lewisham agency?

Sometimes, and we would rather tell you that plainly than take on visits we cannot keep. Our office is on Lewisham High Street in SE13. Getting from there to Golders Green or Hendon takes roughly 50 to 60 minutes on public transport, via London Bridge or Bank and then the Northern line or Thameslink. Finchley Central is about an hour away. Edgware, Mill Hill, Whetstone and High Barnet take 65 to 80 minutes.

Visiting care means short calls at set times, often several a day, so those journeys matter. A morning call in Edgware followed by a lunchtime call in Lewisham does not work for any carer. We cover Barnet. We do not have an office or a staff base there, though. Whether we can offer visits at your address comes down to which carers we have available at the time you call. Ring us with the postcode and the times you need, and we will give you a straight yes or no.

Where visits are not realistic, a live-in carer is. A live-in carer moves into the home, so our distance from Barnet stops mattering.

What visiting care covers

Where we can staff a round, a visiting carer can help with:

• Washing, dressing and personal care
• Medication prompts and recording
• Meals, laundry and home help
• Companionship and outings
• Sitting service
• Dementia care

Everything starts with a free home assessment with Jackie, our registered manager. That produces a written care plan, which you see before any care begins.

Stairs, semis and mansion flats: Barnet homes and care

Barnet is London's most populous borough and mostly suburban. In Edgware, Mill Hill, Whetstone and large parts of Finchley, the typical home is an interwar semi or detached house with a front drive. Many older residents have lived in the same one for decades, with the only bathroom and bedroom upstairs. Interwar staircases are often steep. The point at which a family starts looking for care is often the point at which the stairs, or getting in and out of the bath, stop being safe. In many cases the answer is a stairlift, or a bed brought down to the front room, with visits planned around that.

Other parts of Barnet look different. East Finchley and New Barnet have Edwardian and Victorian terraces. Golders Green and Finchley Road have red-brick mansion blocks, some with lifts and some without. Colindale and the Brent Cross side now have tall new blocks with lifts and level access, which makes equipment easy to bring in.

In Hampstead Garden Suburb the whole area is managed by the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust. External changes such as a ramp or grab rails on the front of the house need the Trust's consent, so ask early if you are adapting a home there.

Arranging council-funded care through Social Care Direct

Barnet Council's front door for adult social care is Social Care Direct. It handles needs assessments, carers' enquiries and safeguarding concerns. Call 020 8359 5000 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) or email socialcaredirect@barnet.gov.uk. An assessment decides what support the council will arrange. A separate financial assessment decides how much you pay towards it.

In its January 2025 assessment of the council's adult social care, the CQC rated Barnet Good. It also noted that some people waited a long time for an assessment. If the need is pressing, ask for the assessment early and say clearly what has changed. If you are given a personal budget, you can take it as a direct payment and use it to pay an agency you choose. The council's Direct Payments Team is on 020 8359 4650. Our guide to paying for care sets out the means test and NHS funding.

Leaving Barnet Hospital or the Royal Free

Both of the borough's main acute hospitals are run by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Which one a person is discharged from depends largely on where they live. Barnet Hospital, on Wellhouse Lane near High Barnet, covers the north: Chipping Barnet, Whetstone, Totteridge, Mill Hill and Edgware. Residents of Golders Green, Hampstead Garden Suburb, Hendon and Finchley are often treated at the Royal Free in Hampstead. Finchley Memorial and Edgware Community Hospital are community sites with clinics. Neither has an A&E.

If you want us involved in a discharge, call while the ward is still planning it, not on the day. We need time to check whether we can cover visits at your address or need to arrange a live-in carer. Read how our hospital discharge support works.

Other help across the borough

Age UK Barnet, at the Ann Owens Centre in East Finchley, runs befriending, footcare, a handyperson service and shopping help. It also holds the council's contract for dementia support. Jewish Care has its main campus, with a dementia day centre and community centre, on Golders Green Road, and a second dementia day centre in Friern Barnet. Barnet has the largest Jewish community of any local authority in Britain, so tell us at the assessment if the person keeps a kosher kitchen or Shabbat routines, and we will plan the care around them. If you have concerns about any local health or care service, Healthwatch Barnet is there to hear them.

What we can help with in Barnet

• Personal care, washing and dressing
• Medication prompting and support
• Meals, laundry and home help
• Companionship and getting out
• Dementia care at home
• Support after a hospital stay
• Short breaks for family carers
• Live-in care when needs grow