How Does Home Care Work Differ from Care Homes?

Home care lets care assistants look after customers in a deeply personal and warm way. Here, we explain the differences between home care and care homes.

What do you mean by care home?

Before we explain the differences between home care vs care homes, it’s worth explaining what we mean by a care home.

In truth there are two types of care home: a residential care home and a nursing home. Both deliver round the clock care to their residents, but a nursing home has fully qualified nurses and delivers a higher quality of continuous care – often for a considerably higher cost.

In either sense, a comparison between home care vs care home work is entirely valid. Not only are our home care assistants highly trained (with regular additional refresher courses), but we often see many people who’ve started in care homes join us as a home care assistant, where they’re able to use the same skills from their previous role in a slightly different environment that carries a host of benefits – as you’ll discover below!

The differences between home care and care homes

1. You can build stronger one-to-one relationships in a home care setting

The entire social care sector is unfortunately experiencing a staffing crisis, which means it’s not uncommon for some care homes to have less than a handful of carers for the entire building. Residents are also typically housed in relatively small rooms, with just a few personal affects like photos hinting at their old life.

All of that can make building one-to-one relationships with residents more difficult than in a home care setting, where your customers are more settled, relaxed and surrounded by the memories that matter to them, and where you have several hours to devote just to their personal care.

2. Stress levels for in-home carers are typically lower

The differences described above lead to another benefit of home care vs care homes: the less hectic and more personal environment means your stress levels are likely to be lower than running between rooms in a residential or nursing care home.

That’s not to say home care work is entirely stress free. You’ll still deal with people who have difficult conditions like dementia, and may need to multitask between things like preparing meals and helping them move around. But it’s a different kind of challenge, and one you’ll be fully trained to tackle.

3. Your support network is on the phone and back at HQ

You’ll also be fully supported – albeit not in person, since you’ll be working solo in customer’s homes.

Admittedly, that lack of immediate in-person advice may initially seem like a downside to working in home care vs care homes. But when you consider the lack of time available to care home staff and the overall stressful working conditions, carers often get less support in that environment than they might hope for.

Not so when you work as a home care assistant. At Bluebird Care, our support staff are always on the end of the phone, and our training team are regularly on-hand if you feel you need to discuss how you handled a difficult situation with a customer after the fact, so you can learn from it for the future. Our care assistants are also a friendly bunch, and always there to offer advice and encouragement to each other!

4. Home carers can get a breather after a difficult appointment

One of the biggest differences between home care and care homes is that in a care home, if you have a resident who is aggressive or takes a dislike to you, you’ll still have to look after them for your entire shift, and will in all likelihood see them the next time you go back in to work as well. In home care, after an especially challenging or upsetting customer appointment you can request to move to a different customer, meaning that our carers and customers always feel like they’ve got the best fit possible.

5. You get to go on day trips!

Another valid point when you’re making a comparison between home care vs care homes is that care home residents very rarely get to venture out beyond the confines of the home and its surrounding gardens – there simply aren’t enough staff to look after them all on trips away. It’s very different with home care, where our Bluebirds are encouraged to take customers out for day trips to all kinds of places – whether it’s country parks, cafes, garden centres or quaint marinas. The variety of experience you’ll enjoy as a home care assistant is far greater, and the freedom you can offer customers feels far more liberating.

6. You feel like your own boss

That freedom also carries an added benefit – you’re far less likely to feel like you’re really working for a company so much as you get to feel like you’re your own boss. Since you agree your shift patterns up front, drive to appointments yourself, and have the agency to decide with your customer what you’d like to do and where you’d like to go together, your regular day-to-day will often feel very self-directed. Our care assistants who come from a care home background regularly tell us it’s the differences between home care and care homes they notice the most, and that sense of independence is one of the things they love most about being a home carer.

7. Career progression and qualifications are a real focus

The last of the differences between home care and care homes is that as a Bluebird, you’re not only given the chance to take on qualifications and learn a specialisation, you’re actively encouraged to. You get a higher rate of pay the more qualified you become, and after some courses you may even get the chance to train other care assistants! From the moment you get your care certificate that confirms you as a qualified care assistant, there is a career path open to you at Bluebird Care – one that’s also seen our staff make the jump from caring roles to office support positions. We’re very much a family, and we believe that our care assistant’s successes only make our business better.

Thinking of moving into a home care role?

Whether you’re currently working in a care home, have a background in one, or you’re a sector switcher looking for a more fulfilling career where you can give back to people, we have plenty of open carer roles that you might be the perfect fit for.

Visit our careers site to see our Bournemouth & Poole carer jobs and begin your journey to becoming a Bluebird.

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