Somewhere in North London this week, a family is waiting for a stranger to knock on the door at 7:30 in the morning, walk into a bedroom, and help their 85-year-old parent shower and dress. That stranger will be there every weekday. And the family found them on a classifieds site.

That is not a criticism of David, who posted the listing. It is one of the most honest things we see families do, because it shows exactly how hard this problem actually is. The NHS did not send someone. The council waiting list was too long. A full care agency felt like overkill, or too expensive, for one hour a day. So a family member posted an advert, crossed their fingers, and hoped.

If this is where you are right now, you are not doing anything wrong. You are doing what people do when the system has not caught up with what a real family actually needs.

But there are a few things worth knowing before that knock at the door happens.

The vetting gap that catches families out

When you hire a carer privately, the vetting is entirely your responsibility. That sounds obvious written down, but in the middle of everything else you are carrying, it is easy to assume someone else has checked. They have not.

A DBS check (Disclosure and Barring Service) is the legal mechanism that tells you whether someone is barred from working with vulnerable adults in the UK. It is not automatic. It is not something a carer carries around on their phone. If you are arranging private care for a parent, you need to either request one yourself through gov.uk or use someone who has already run one on your behalf.

Beyond the DBS, there is insurance. If a carer is self-employed and something goes wrong, whether that is a fall, a medication error, or a simple accident, your position is very different depending on whether they hold public liability insurance. Most people who answer a classifieds advert do not. That is not because they are dishonest. It is because nobody told them they needed it.

References matter too, and not just a number on a piece of paper. A previous employer who will actually speak to you, briefly, about the carer's reliability and how they worked with a person who needed personal care, tells you far more than a CV.

None of this is designed to frighten you. It is just the part of this that families rarely find out until they need it.

What continuity actually means for someone who needs morning care

An hour a day, 7:30 to 8:30am, sounds simple. In practice, morning personal care, showering, dressing, handling mobility, knowing the routines of a person who has lived a very particular way for eighty-five years, is some of the most intimate and trust-dependent care there is.

Skills for Care, which sets the workforce standards for home care in England, is consistent on this point: familiarity between a carer and the person they support is not a nice-to-have. It is a safety factor. A carer who knows that your parent always needs a moment before getting up, or takes a particular medication with breakfast, or becomes anxious if the routine changes, is providing meaningfully better care than one who is new to the household every few weeks.

For families arranging care privately, continuity is the one advantage you have over a managed rota service, where cover carers turn up when the regular person is off. If you find the right person yourself and they commit to those five mornings a week, you can build that continuity deliberately. The question is how you protect yourself if they are unwell, move on, or simply do not work out.

Having a second person who knows your parent and the household routine, even if they only cover occasionally, is worth thinking about from the start. Age UK's helpline (0800 678 1602) can talk through contingency planning for privately arranged care if you want a non-commercial view on how to structure it.

What the employment side of this actually involves

If you pay someone directly to care for a family member, and they work regular hours for you, Citizens Advice is clear that HMRC may treat that person as an employee rather than a self-employed contractor. That means PAYE, National Insurance, and statutory rights including sick pay and holiday pay.

This catches a lot of families completely off guard. It is not a reason to avoid arranging care privately. It is a reason to understand what you are agreeing to before the arrangement starts. Citizens Advice can help you work out whether your arrangement would be classed as employment and what your responsibilities would be.

The alternative is to use an introductory care agency, where the carer remains self-employed and manages their own tax affairs. This is a specific legal structure that sits between a fully managed agency and a purely private arrangement. The family still chooses their carer and pays them directly, but the employment complexity does not fall on the family.

If you want to talk through that option alongside the others, Hibant is a London introductory care agency that works exactly this way. We are one route, not the only route, and the helplines above are a genuinely good first call if you want advice with no commercial interest behind it.

What families in this situation often tell us they wish they had known earlier is this: the paperwork and the vetting feel like bureaucracy until something goes wrong. Then they feel like the only thing that matters.

One thing to do this week

Before the arrangement starts, or if it has already started and you have not done this yet, request a basic DBS check. You can do this through the Disclosure and Barring Service via gov.uk. It costs a small fee and takes a few days. It does not cover everything, but it is the single most important safety check for anyone working alone with a vulnerable adult in your home.

If you are not sure where to start, the Carers UK Helpline on 0808 808 7777 is free, staffed by people who know this territory, and has no stake in what you decide.

If you would rather not navigate the vetting, insurance, and self-employment questions on your own, this is what Hibant exists for. We are a London introductory care agency. Every carer we introduce to a family has been DBS-checked and insurance-verified by us before you meet them, and you meet them in person yourself before any arrangement begins. You choose the carer, you agree the hours and rate directly with them, and you keep the simplicity of a private arrangement without carrying the vetting work alone. For families arranging morning care in North London, or anywhere across London, you can reach us at hello@hibantcare.com or at hibantcare.com.

Hibant

Useful links to keep handy

Looking for care or thinking of joining Hibant?

Whether you are a family navigating care for a loved one or a carer looking for fairer, more meaningful work, we would love to hear from you.

Find a carer Join as a carer
← Back to Understanding Care Questions? Get in touch