Caring is not presently an attractive career and because of that, many carers are leaving the sector. That’s a real pity because there are so many great carers out there who deserve so much more.

We in Home Care Direct are genuinely trying to change that by giving great committed carers, other options apart from just working with agencies. By carers having other options, they can rebalance the axis of power in their favour.

It’s important to remember that demand for home care is increasing all the time but as many carers are seeing by not getting sufficient work, HSE funding isn’t there to cover it. What that means, is that more and more families are going to have to pay for care privately.

If families are paying for care privately they would much prefer to do that directly with the carer because firstly, it will be cheaper but secondly and what families are telling us, is that the service they get when working directly with carers is much better.

We have had numerous families come to us with their carers saying they want to work directly rather than through an agency. The family’s loyalty is to the carer delivering care and not the organisation behind it.

What we do at Home Care Direct is make it easy for families and carers to work directly. We do this by vetting all carers and then handling the carer’s

  • administration,
  • invoicing,
  • payments
  • tax returns
  • Insurance cover allowing carers to concentrate on delivering great care.

This gives great comfort to families because everything is legal and above board and really importantly, allows them to reclaim up to 40% on what they are paying carers. So if they are paying carers €22/hr, it only costs them €13/hr. An absolute no brainer for them!

There is absolutely no charge for carers to get up on our platform and we only charge 13% on any work they get, which they know about in advance of setting their rates. As such we encourage all carers to get themselves on the platform even if they have lots of agency work at the moment. They are under no obligation to accept work that might come their way but it means that they are ready to go the day they want to start to work privately.

We don’t guarantee they’ll get work straight away or even ever, as a lot of that will depend on them and their attitude but what we can say is that carers who have got work through Home Care Direct have achieved

  • Full control over when and with whom they work
  • Pay of €21.65/hour on average
  • Longer shifts than with agencies (no 30 min ones)
  • Huge satisfaction with having their own clients
  • Incredibly close relationships with their clients

We would encourage all carers to think about joining the Home Care Direct platform and at the same time, talk to their existing clients and if the families aren’t getting enough HSE hours to cover their needs, let them know they would be available to do extra private hours in a fully legal manner. Or, talk with families in their area who might need care and let them know they are available for private work.

Yes, caring in the traditional sense isn’t a very attractive career but it doesn’t have to be that way. Carers need to take control of their careers and make things happen themselves!