Home Care in Camden

Can you provide home care in Camden?

Yes. We provide visiting home care in Camden: a carer comes to the house for personal care, medication, meals and company, on a schedule agreed after a free home assessment with Jackie, our registered manager. Our office is in Lewisham, not Camden, so how easily we can staff your visits depends on where in the borough you live.

The south and centre of the borough is the easier part for us. A carer can get from Lewisham to King's Cross or Camden Town in roughly 30 to 40 minutes, through London Bridge and then Thameslink or the Northern line. That puts Bloomsbury, King's Cross, Somers Town, Camden Town and Kentish Town within reach for a regular round of visits. Hampstead, Belsize Park, West Hampstead and Kilburn take 45 minutes or more, and several short visits a day over that distance are harder to staff. For those addresses we will tell you plainly whether we can cover the visits you need. If we can't, live-in care, where the carer moves in, works anywhere in the borough.

We cover NW1, NW3, NW5, NW6, WC1 and N1C, plus the Camden parts of N6, NW8 and WC2. Highgate is split between Camden and Haringey, and Kilburn High Road is the boundary with Brent, so check which council your address belongs to before you contact social care.

What a visit can include

Visits are built around the person's day: getting up, washed and dressed in the morning, tablets prompted and recorded, a hot lunch, and someone to settle them at night.

• Personal care
• Medication support
• Home help
• Companionship
• Sit-in service
• Dementia care

How often the carer comes, and for how long, goes into a written care plan that changes as needs change.

Stairs, lifts and small bathrooms

Camden is a borough of flats. Post-war council estates and towers sit a few streets from Victorian terraces that were split into upper-floor conversions long ago, and Hampstead, West Hampstead and Bloomsbury have red-brick mansion blocks with narrow stairwells.

Someone on the third floor of a walk-up in Kentish Town, or in a Gospel Oak block where the lift has broken down, may cope indoors but be unable to get out at all. Bathing is often the first thing to become unsafe, because many converted flats have a small bathroom with a bath and no space for a shower seat or a second person. Hoists and hospital beds need floor space that a converted Belsize Park flat may not have. At the assessment we look at the stairs, the bathroom and the bedroom. If equipment or adaptations would help, we will say so and suggest asking Camden Adult Social Care about an occupational therapy assessment.

Then there are the hills. Getting from Highgate West Hill or the lanes above Heath Street to the shops with a walking frame is a harder trip than the same errand in flat Bloomsbury, so outings are planned around the route.

Hospital discharge in Camden

Which hospital depends on where you live. University College Hospital on Euston Road, run by UCLH, is the main acute hospital for south Camden. The Royal Free on Pond Street serves Hampstead, Belsize Park, Gospel Oak, Swiss Cottage and West Hampstead. For Highgate and parts of Kentish Town the nearest A&E is the Whittington at Archway, just over the border in Islington. Camden is covered by NHS West and North London Integrated Care Board, and adult community health services in the borough are run by Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

Discharges that need care are planned through Camden Adult Social Care and the community health teams. If you want a private agency as well, tell the ward and call us early.

Asking Camden Council for a needs assessment

Anyone can ask Camden Council for a care needs assessment, for themselves or for someone they are worried about. Use the council's online referral form for Adult Social Care, or phone Contact Camden on 020 7974 4444 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) and say "Adult Social Care" when prompted. If you think someone is being harmed or neglected, say "Safeguarding" instead. Adults with a learning disability are supported by the Camden Learning Disabilities Service, a joint council and NHS team, on 020 7974 3737.

If the council finds eligible needs, it can arrange care itself or give a direct payment so you can choose your own provider, which can be an agency like ours. Camden commissions PeoplePlus to run its Independent Living Service, which helps people manage direct payments. Referral to it comes through a social care or health professional.

How much does home care cost in Camden?

We don't quote prices over the phone. The cost depends on how many visits are needed, how long they last and what happens in them, so we give you a written figure after the free assessment.

If Camden Council is involved, it will also do a financial assessment to work out what you contribute. The NHS guide to paying for your own care explains that once savings fall below the upper capital limit of £23,250, the council may help with the cost. Where someone's needs are mainly health needs, NHS Continuing Healthcare may pay for care in full. Our guide to paying for care in London goes through each route.

Memory support alongside home care

Visiting care for someone living with dementia works best with familiar faces at familiar times, and we plan rotas with that in mind. Alongside our visits, the Camden Memory Service, run by North London NHS Foundation Trust, assesses and supports Camden residents aged 65 and over, by referral from a GP or hospital. Age UK Camden offers a Dementia Wellbeing service, dementia befriending, and day care at Henderson Court in Hampstead and at Great Croft on Cromer Street, near King's Cross.

What we can help with in Camden

• 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