Domiciliary Care Project

There are many support options for care in England. Care homes are one, but many people prefer to be supported in their own homes. Care provided in peoples’ own homes is called domiciliary care. It is an increasingly important part of social care. There are a variety of services, including home visits and live-in care. Some people directly employ helpers, called Personal Assistants (PAs). Services vary in quality, price, and availability, and there is currently little evidence of the value these services provide to local authorities or individuals. 

• Compare how care provided by agencies compares with that of Personal Assistants (PAs) and
• Assess the effects domiciliary care has on unpaid carers’ wellbeing and the health and outcomes of those being cared for.

We will survey people receiving different types of domiciliary care and unpaid carers by post, telephone, and in-person interview. We will recruit widely, getting the opinions of a variety of people in a range of locations. To avoid duplication and reduce costs, we will use data on care home residents collected in the NIHR DACHA study.  

We will use the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT), a measure of social care related quality-of-life already used in other surveys, to ask whether homecare services support people and their families to live as they wish and to do the things they’d like to do. We will then add other important factors, including age, gender, ethnicity, source of care funding, geographical location, availability of unpaid care, housing suitability/safety, and provider characteristics. Together these will give us a sound picture of the home care landscape. 

Public Research Advisors (RAs) with lived experience of social care services, are involved in all stages of our research cycle, including with our project design, implementation, and dissemination plans. 

Study findings will inform decision-making, by local and central government, on social services: to support people with care needs live more independent lives and to develop guidance about home care options. Findings will also support individuals and families to make more informed decisions about their care.

Study timeline