If you’re researching home care for a loved one, you’ll already know how overwhelming it can feel. The options are many, the decisions are significant, and the hourly rate, while not the whole picture, is usually what catches your eye first.
But what if the cheapest option costs more than you think? Not in pounds, but in consistency, oversight, and peace of mind?
In this blog, we look beyond the hourly rate to explore what quality home care actually includes and why, for the people who matter most, the difference is everything.
Looking for home care you can truly rely on? With over 25 years of experience supporting families, myCare is here to help. Get in touch with our friendly team today.
What the Hourly Rate Doesn't Tell You
When families start looking for care at home, the hourly rate is usually the first number they focus on. It’s understandable, but care isn’t like most purchases.
The difference between a lower-cost provider and a higher-quality one rarely shows up on a spreadsheet. It shows up at 11 pm when something goes wrong. It shows up in whether your loved one sees a familiar face or a different stranger each visit.
The minimum rate required to deliver safe, sustainable care is significantly higher than many families expect. Yet the cheapest options in the market continue to undercut that figure, often at the expense of consistency and staff wellbeing.
The right question isn’t ‘what’s the hourly rate?’ It’s ‘what does that hour actually include?’
Testing new Ways to Deliver Better Care
Getting the most out of every hour of care means never standing still. At myCare, we regularly test new ways of delivering support through structured trial projects, such as a Test of Change.
A Test of Change is a structured, time-limited trial used to test whether a new approach to delivering care genuinely works before committing to it long-term.
In plain terms: it’s a trial project. We try something new, we measure the impact on the people we support, and we learn from it. If it works, it becomes a permanent part of how we deliver care.
A Test of Change in Action
At myCare, we started our Test of Change in January of this year. It’s a 6-month trial that’s now halfway through, running two new services alongside partner organisations.
Both were developed in response to a simple truth: people deserve more choice over their own care, particularly at the moments that matter most. With council budgets under growing pressure and many outreach services no longer available, the need has never been greater.
Partners in Meaningful Care
To accomplish this myCare is working collaboratively with two trusted partners. The first is an End-of-Life service with Blackwood, supporting people who choose to spend their final days at home rather than in a hospital.
BLACKWOOD DETAILS
The second is an Overnight service with SRS, launched after Easter, that gives clients genuine control over personal concerns, such as when they go to bed. This is aimed at helping people who rely on care at home reclaim one of the most personal decisions of their day.
SRS DETAILS
Why Does it Matter?
What makes a Test of Change meaningful isn’t just the trial itself. It’s the honesty it requires. It means being willing to ask: Is this working? Is it genuinely making life better for the people we support?
At myCare, that kind of rigour isn’t a box-ticking exercise. It’s part of what quality care looks like. And when the answer is yes, as it has been here, it means those improvements don’t stay as trials. They become the standard.
What Families are Saying
TESTIMONIALS
The Wider Impact of Greater Patient Choice
When people are supported at home, the benefits reach far beyond the individual, for the person, their family, and the wider NHS.
Better Outcomes for Your Loved one
Good-quality care at home improves quality of life and helps more people die in their preferred place. The evidence for home-based end-of-life care is compelling.
Research shows that home-based palliative care reduces hospital readmissions, with only 9.1% having a 30-day readmission probability compared to 17.4% for standard home care. By avoiding further hospitalisation, loved ones have more time at home with family in familiar surroundings.
Relieving Pressure on the NHS
Every person supported at home during the end of life is one less occupied hospital bed. In 2024-25, over 720,000 bed days were lost in Scotland due to delayed discharge, with one in every nine beds occupied by someone ready to leave.
The most common reason for those delays? A lack of social care at home. The answer already exists; it simply needs the right support to deliver it.
This is exactly what myCare’s partnership with Blackwood and SRS is designed to address: giving people greater choice at home, while relieving pressure on a system stretched to its limits.
What Quality Care Actually Includes
When families compare care providers on price alone, it’s easy to miss what’s actually being compared. The hourly rate is visible. What it does or doesn’t include is not.
Clinical Oversight and Real-Time Updates
Quality care isn’t just about what happens during a visit; it’s about what happens between visits, too. At myCare, care plans are updated when something changes, not just at a six-monthly review.
Families are kept informed. Changes in condition are flagged promptly. Nothing falls through the gaps. Care delivered without proper oversight leaves families in the dark at precisely the moments when they most need to know what’s happening.
Care Worker Continuity
The Care Quality Commission identifies continuity of care as a key aspect of good home care, noting that when a care worker supports someone regularly, they can become ‘part of the family’, helping people feel safe, building trust, and more quickly noticing when something is wrong.
A provider who sends a different face each visit cannot offer this. A cheaper hourly rate rarely tells you that.
Safety and Peace of Mind
For families who aren’t present at every visit, the question isn’t just ‘is my loved one being cared for?’ It’s ‘Will someone notice if something changes?’
Continuity of care may help care workers identify issues earlier and help your loved ones stay healthy and comfortable. At myCare, that safety net is built into how we work, not added as an extra.
Get the Care Your Loved one Deserves With myCares
When the time comes to arrange care, the instinct to find the most affordable option is understandable. But it’s important to make sure you’re getting the right support as well.
At myCare, we measure care by its impact on people’s lives, not its cost per hour.
We’re trialling new services. We’re working collaboratively with partners like Blackwood and SRS. And on 14th May, we’ll be at the Scottish Care Awards, nominated by our peers on the strength of outcomes that speak for themselves.
To find out how myCare can support you or your loved one, get in touch with our team today.
