Live-In Care in Worthing
Support that feels like family. Carers you can count on.
Support at home that fits the house as well as the person
Much of Worthing’s older housing was never built for anyone who struggles with stairs. The bathroom is upstairs, the hallway is narrow, and that shapes the arrangement as much as any medical need does. We have arranged live-in care in Worthing for close to thirty years, long enough to know that a bungalow in Goring-by-Sea and a Victorian terrace in Tarring are two different jobs.
One office covers the whole of West Sussex, so a flat in the town centre and a cottage out past Lancing are handled by the same people rather than two branches. Not sure live-in care is the answer yet? Our guide to what live-in care involves lays it out plainly.
Hear from families we've helped
What a live-in carer actually does in a Worthing home
No two households want the same thing. One needs a hand at either end of the day. Another needs somebody within earshot at three in the morning. A live-in carer’s duties are set by the household and rewritten as things change.
Personal care
Bathing, dressing, continence, and getting safely up and down the stairs. Much of Worthing’s older housing puts the only bathroom on the first floor, so this part of the job is often as much about the building as the person.
Companionship
Somebody to talk to, and somebody to get out of the house with. A slow walk along the seafront, an hour in the park, coffee in town on a Thursday. Company does more for most people than anything else on the care plan.
Medication reminders
Your carer prompts each dose and records what has been taken. When a prescription changes, they speak to the surgery or the pharmacy directly instead of leaving the family to chase it.
Alzheimer's disease & dementia care
Memory loss is easier to live with when nothing else moves. Same house, same chair, same face at breakfast. Our carers hold dementia training, and we match on temperament and habits rather than on the diagnosis.
Palliative care
Where a family wants the last months spent at home rather than on a ward, a live-in carer makes that workable. We work alongside the district nursing team and the hospice service, and support can be stepped up quickly.
Household chores and assistance
Laundry, cooking, the weekly shop, keeping the house running. For addresses out toward Ferring, Findon or High Salvington, that usually means a carer who drives.
Why worthing families choose Cheriton over a national agency
Most live-in care sold into Worthing comes from national brands: a carer pulled from a database, matched to your postcode, managed from another county. Our office sits further east along the coast, where the same team arranges live-in care in Brighton and across Hove, and the manager who assesses your mother in March is the one you ring in September.
- The CQC scored us Outstanding for Caring. Not the overall rating, the caring one specifically, which sits with a small minority of home care providers in England.
- You can turn a carer down. Profiles reach you in writing, you speak to whoever is proposed, and nobody moves in on the strength of a postcode match.
- Vetting finishes before a shift starts. Enhanced DBS, references taken up, and training that keeps going long past induction.
- Owned here, run from here. No regional desk, no head office two counties away deciding who suits your mother.
- The address decides the match. A seafront flat, a bungalow in Sompting, a house on the downland edge toward Steyning: different jobs, and only some of them need a carer who drives.
- Holiday cover has a name attached. Relief is booked weeks ahead with somebody the household already knows, and the notes stay open for family to read.
Not sure yet? That's the normal place to start
Why staying put usually beats a room somewhere else
Whether home is a seafront flat, a bungalow in Durrington, or a house somebody has lived in for forty years, live-in care leaves that part alone.
Familiar surroundings matter most at the point memory and mobility start to go.
The same person daily, who learns how your mum takes her tea without being told twice.
The cat stays, the garden stays, the radio still goes on at seven.
No hours, no signing in, no grandchildren on best behaviour in a lounge.
Same GP, same chemist, same faces on the promenade. A residential bed is wherever the vacancy happens to be, which is rarely close by.
Live-in care can run up to 30% below a residential placement, and the gap widens for couples. There are other advantages worth weighing before you decide.
Live-in, 24-hour and visiting care are not the same arrangement
The terms get used interchangeably, and the difference shows up the moment you compare quotes. A live-in carer lives with you and takes agreed breaks, then either sleeps overnight or stays awake on duty. Where somebody cannot be left alone at any point, that becomes two carers in rotation.
Visiting care in Worthing is a different arrangement: fixed calls, agreed tasks, then the carer leaves. It suits somebody still largely independent.
Live-in care also works in short blocks. A fortnight after a hospital stay, cover while family are away, or a trial before anyone commits to anything open-ended.
How an arrangement comes together, step by step
Some families call with a discharge date already fixed. Others have months. The order never changes, though what we look at on the visit very much does.
- A conversation first. Phone, email, or a callback when it suits. We ask enough to work out whether live-in care is even the right answer for you.
- A visit to the house. Richard Barnett, our Registered Manager, or Nastasha, our Field Care Supervisor, comes out. Past the medication and the routine, they read the property: which room the carer would take, whether the bathroom is reachable, and where a car can sit overnight, which is the sticking point in the permit zones near the seafront.
- You pick the carer. Written profiles and as many questions as you like. For addresses on the downland edge or out among the villages, we shortlist drivers before you ever see a profile.
- The first week. Daisy, our Care Coordinator, checks in while the household settles. Small adjustments nearly always surface here rather than at the assessment.
- Then somebody keeps watching. A case manager reviews the placement, and senior management review the case managers. It is the layer most agencies leave out.
The cost, set out plainly
Live-in care is billed weekly: one carer, one household, nothing hourly.
- From £1,190 a week for one person
- From £1,476 a week for a couple sharing a home
A second person adds under £300 a week, against two residential places at nearly double. The rest comes down to care levels and nights, and often to the house itself.
- Sleeping nights. The carer sleeps in their own room, up if needed. Enough for most, particularly the single-storey bungalows at Ferring or Goring-by-Sea.
- Waking nights. The carer stays awake, at a higher rate. Worth weighing when the spare room is two floors up, as in the older terraces near town.
Those are private rates, and there is a fair chance you will not be paying all of it.
Who else might pay towards it
We take privately and publicly funded households. One thing that catches families out: a Worthing address is assessed by West Sussex, not Brighton and Hove, however close along the coast you sit.
- West Sussex County Council. Anyone can request a needs assessment from adult social care, free and whatever your savings. A separate financial assessment decides whether the council pays toward it.
- NHS Continuing Healthcare. We are experienced in supporting CHC-funded packages, assessed locally by NHS Sussex, which can cover the full cost where clinical needs are significant.
- Direct Payments. Where the council does contribute, you can take that budget and choose the provider yourself rather than accept one off a list.
- Attendance Allowance. Savings and income make no difference to it. It will not cover a live-in rate, but it goes unclaimed constantly.
Questions Worthing families put to us
How quickly can a live-in carer start after a discharge from Worthing Hospital?
Urgent cases are usually covered within 48 to 72 hours. Without a discharge date forcing the pace, expect one to two weeks from the first assessment.
Do you cover the villages and suburbs, or only central Worthing?
Both. We place across the suburbs from Goring-by-Sea through to Broadwater, out to the downland villages, and west as far as Littlehampton. Addresses off the bus routes get carers who drive.
Can live-in care work in a flat with no spare room?
No. The carer needs a room of their own to sleep and take breaks in, so a one-bedroom flat rules it out. A small second bedroom is enough, and a second bathroom is a bonus rather than a requirement.
Is live-in care allowed in a retirement or sheltered scheme?
Usually, though most schemes want notice and some ask to see our registration first. We handle that with the scheme manager rather than leaving it to you.
Can my carer drive me to appointments around town?
Yes, provided they hold a valid licence and your insurance names them. Some families would rather the carer used their own car, which we can arrange instead.
You do not have to know what you want before you call
Almost nobody rings with the decision already made. It is usually the week after a fall, a letter from the hospital with a date on it, or the slow realisation that a parent stopped coping some time ago and never mentioned it.
Tell us what is happening and we will say what we would do in your position. If visiting care or something else fits better, we will tell you that instead.
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