What checks a carer may go through

"What checks do your carers have?" It is a fair question to put to an agency on the phone, and not a hard one to ask. The harder part comes as the answer arrives, when you are not sure what you are listening for. This is information, not medical or legal advice. It names no check that is required anywhere, since those differ from place to place, and it cannot tell you whether any agency's answer is good enough. What it offers is the kinds of checks that guidance in a few places mentions, and ways you and your parent can ask about them.

What guidance mentions

Some of what guidance describes is visible at the door. In England, the NHS says carers from a home care agency should always bring an identity card, and lists it among the ways of treating a person with respect and dignity.

Some of it happens before a carer is taken on. NICE's home care guideline for England recommends that providers recruit through a fair and transparent process, using values-based interviews to find people with the attitudes that caring, compassionate work needs, and making sure workers have the language, literacy and numeracy skills the job calls for. Family Caregiver Alliance, in the United States, suggests asking an agency whether it does background checks on its carers and, if it does, what methods it uses. In Canada, the Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan suggests that families choosing a private homecare agency ask how it screens employees before hiring them.

And some of it carries on after a carer starts. The same NICE guideline for England recommends that new home care workers are observed at work during their induction. The Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan also suggests asking how an agency's employees are supervised.

A check is one way an agency learns about the people it employs, and asking about it means asking how the agency works, not asking to see what it found about any one person. Which checks exist, and how they are done, differ by where your parent lives, and the sources here speak for England, the United States and one Canadian province.

Asking in writing, before anyone visits

Family Caregiver Alliance in the United States suggests asking an agency to send written information about its services, fees and references, so it can be read before meeting anyone from the agency.

Family Caregiver Alliance in the United States, in its tips for hiring through an agency, also suggests asking how the agency matches carers to the people it supports.

Your parent's part

Family Caregiver Alliance in the United States says that when a family writes up its notes after interviewing a possible carer, the impressions of the person receiving care should be included, because their input is important. NICE's home care guideline for England suggests that providers consider involving people who use home care, and their unpaid carers, in recruiting and training home care workers.

The answers to these questions are your parent's to weigh, with you alongside if they want, and no one answer settles whether an agency or a carer is the right one.

Questions about the care your parent's health needs are for their doctor or care team, and your parent can take them there in whatever way suits them. Two guides come at this from other sides: Questions to ask when choosing a carer or agency and Bringing a carer into your parent's home.