Home Care in London

London is served by 1,152 CQC-registered home care, spread across 143 postcode districts. Every provider on this page appears on the official register — this listing is compiled from regulator data rather than paid placement, so it reflects the actual market, not the advertising one.

A home care (domiciliary care) agency sends trained care workers into people's own homes to help with the practical tasks that make independent life possible — washing and dressing, medication prompts, meal preparation, continence care, and companionship. your chosen provider is registered with the Care Quality Commission for the regulated activity of personal care, which means its recruitment (including DBS checks), training, care planning and complaints handling are all subject to inspection.

Home care ranges from a single 30-minute visit each week to several visits a day, overnight support, or full live-in care. The defining principle is that care is built around your routine rather than an institution's: a good agency will assess you at home, write a care plan with you and your family, and review it as needs change. For many people home care is what makes the difference between staying in a familiar home and moving into residential care.

Within London, the heaviest concentration is in NW10 — 62 providers, around 5% of the local total — which is worth knowing before you assume the nearest option is your only one.

Density matters when you are planning repeat visits: a provider in your own postcode district saves meaningful travel time over a course of treatment or ongoing care.

• NW10 — 62 providers
• SE18 — 51 providers
• E1 — 32 providers
• N17 — 30 providers
• SE1 — 29 providers
• SE13 — 26 providers
• E7 — 25 providers
• SW16 — 22 providers
• E14 — 22 providers
• E15 — 21 providers
• SW19 — 20 providers
• SE6 — 20 providers

What does a home care agency actually do? The typical service range looks like this — confirm specifics with each provider, as scope varies between locations:

• Personal care — Support with bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting and continence — delivered with dignity in your own home, at times that fit your routine.
• Medication support — Prompting, assisting with or administering medicines according to the level agreed in your care plan, with records kept for every visit.
• Meal preparation and nutrition — Shopping, cooking and support at mealtimes, including monitoring for weight loss or swallowing difficulties that need escalation.
• Domestic support — Housekeeping, laundry and shopping — the tasks that keep a household running safely when mobility or energy declines.
• Companionship and social support — Regular visits that reduce isolation: conversation, accompanying you to appointments or activities, and keeping family informed.
• Respite for family carers — Planned cover that lets an unpaid family carer rest, work or travel, from a few hours to full temporary care packages.
• Dementia care at home — Care workers trained in dementia support, consistent rostering to preserve familiarity, and structured communication with families.
• Live-in and overnight care — A care worker present in the home overnight or around the clock — the main alternative to a care home for people with high needs.
• End-of-life care at home — Palliative support coordinated with district nurses and hospice teams so people can remain at home in their final weeks.

There are 1,152 home care agencies serving London, and the practical differences between them are large. Shortlist by CQC report first — read the safe and well-led sections, which cover recruitment checks and missed-visit handling. Then interrogate logistics: does the agency actually have capacity on your street at the times you need, will visits be delivered by a small consistent team, and how does the office communicate with families? Finally, check the contract for minimum visit lengths and cancellation terms before committing.

Arranging home care with your chosen provider starts with a phone call and leads to a home assessment: a senior member of staff visits, discusses what support is needed, checks the home environment, and produces a care plan and weekly cost. Reputable agencies never quote a final price without assessing in person, so treat the first call as a conversation about needs, availability in your postcode, and timescales rather than a booking.

If council funding may be involved, the sequence matters: ask your local authority's adult social care team for a needs assessment first. If you qualify, the council either arranges care itself or gives you a personal budget/direct payment you can spend with an agency of your choice, such as your chosen provider. A financial assessment (means test) determines what you contribute. If you fund care yourself you can approach the agency directly and start as soon as they have capacity.

Ask three questions before signing: Will we have a consistent small team of care workers? What happens if a care worker is off sick or running late? And how quickly can the care plan change if needs increase? The answers reveal more about an agency's quality than any brochure.

A first appointment at a home care agency is part assessment, part administration — and you control how productive the assessment half is.

Bring the paperwork that saves repeating yourself: a list of current medications with doses (a photo of the boxes works), any relevant hospital letters or test results, your NHS number if you know it, and glasses or hearing aids if you use them. If the appointment concerns someone you care for, bring evidence of any legal authority you hold — power of attorney documents change what staff can lawfully discuss with you.

Expect the first appointment to include identity and history checks, a discussion of what you need, and an examination or assessment appropriate to the service. Be direct about two things in particular: everything you are taking (including over-the-counter and herbal products), and what outcome you actually want — clinicians plan differently for "I want to be seen quickly" versus "I want the most thorough option".

Before you leave, make sure three questions have answers: what happens next, who does it, and when. Vague follow-up arrangements are where care most often goes adrift; a specific next step — a booked review, a named referral, a results date with a way to chase it — is the mark of a well-run service, and it is entirely reasonable to ask for it explicitly.

Home care in the UK is typically charged by the hour, with regional variation — and shorter visits cost proportionally more per hour. Live-in care is priced weekly. Councils publish the rates they pay, but self-funders often pay somewhat more; always get the full rate card including evening, weekend and bank-holiday uplifts, travel charges, and the notice period for ending care.

Funding help exists on several routes: local-authority funding after a means test (savings thresholds apply in England), NHS Continuing Healthcare for people whose needs are primarily health-driven (fully funded, no means test), and Attendance Allowance or Personal Independence Payment, which are non-means-tested benefits that can offset care costs. Age UK and Citizens Advice both provide free help navigating these systems.

Most people in London approaching a home care agency face the same fork: NHS-funded care that is free but rationed by waiting time and eligibility, or private care that is fast but self-funded. Neither is universally right — the answer depends on urgency, budget and what the specific service offers on each route.

Three practical rules keep the comparison honest. First, ask every provider which routes it actually offers — many serve both, and NHS capacity opens and closes month to month. Second, when comparing private quotes, compare totals rather than headline consultation fees: follow-ups, diagnostics and aftercare are where quotes diverge. Third, remember the hybrid path — an NHS referral for diagnosis with private treatment, or vice versa, is legitimate and common; you can switch routes between stages of care, though not usually within a single episode of treatment.

The right questions do more than fill an appointment — they reveal how a home care agency thinks. These are the ones that earn their place:

1. Who exactly will provide my care, and what is their professional registration?
2. What are the realistic timescales — first appointment, results, and treatment?
3. What will this cost in total, and what could add to that figure later?
4. What are the alternatives, including doing nothing for now?
5. How do you handle problems out of hours, and who do I contact?
6. What should I expect to feel or notice afterwards, and what would be a warning sign?
7. How will you keep my GP informed, and what gets written to my record?
8. If my needs change, how quickly can the plan change with them?

Write the answers down during the conversation — comparing them across two or three providers turns an anxious choice into an informed one.

Your relationship with any registered provider sits on a legal foundation worth knowing before you ever need it.

You are entitled to informed consent — a genuine explanation of options, risks and alternatives before treatment, in language you understand, with interpreters provided where needed. You have a right of access to your own records under UK GDPR, free of charge in most cases, within a month of asking. And under the Equality Act, providers must make reasonable adjustments for disability — from step-free access to communication formats — as a legal duty, not a favour.

If care falls short, complain in stages: first to the provider itself (every registered service must operate an accessible complaints procedure and respond within a defined timescale); then, for NHS-funded care, to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman — or for privately funded care, to the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service where the provider subscribes. Local authority-funded social care complaints escalate to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Two further channels matter. The CQC does not investigate individual complaints, but it wants to hear about poor care — reports feed directly into inspection planning, and you can tell it anything in confidence via its website. And if you need help making a complaint about NHS care, every area has a statutory independent advocacy service that is free to use; your council can point you to the current provider.