Swan Court
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Requires improvementCQC, Jul 2021
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +2 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
Home care in Buckingham
There are 7 home care services in Buckingham registered with the Care Quality Commission. 4 carry a published CQC rating, and 2 of those are rated Good or Outstanding. The other 3 are unrated, which usually means they have not been inspected since registering rather than that anything is wrong. Privately arranged care is quoted by the hour, and the Homecare Association puts the minimum a provider must charge in 2026-27 at £34.42, or about £481.88 a week for two half-hour visits a day. Adult social care in Buckingham is arranged by Buckinghamshire, which paid providers £23.00 an hour in 2023-24, the 34th highest of 150 councils in England and 9% above the £21.19 median.
What home care costs in Buckingham
None of the 7 services in Buckingham have published their rates here yet. Ring two or three and ask. Most will quote over the phone.
For comparison, the Homecare Association puts the minimum sustainable price at £34.42 an hour for 2026-27. That covers careworker pay at the statutory minimum for all working time including travel, mileage, wage-related costs, and the minimum cost of running a compliant care business.
What Buckinghamshire pays for home care
£23an hour, 2023-24
The average hourly rate Buckinghamshire paid independent agencies for home care it commissioned.
The Homecare Association puts the minimum sustainable price at £34.42 an hour, which is what an agency needs to charge to pay carers lawfully for travel time as well as time in your home. Those two figures cover different years (2023-24 against 2026-27), so treat the gap as indicative rather than exact. Wages have risen since, so the current gap is more likely wider than narrower.
This is not what you would pay. Councils buy in bulk on long contracts. Arranging care privately costs meaningfully more, and part of what a private client pays makes up the difference on the council’s rate.
NHS England, Adult Social Care Finance Return, 2023-24, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source · Compare every council
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Dementia care (7)Elderly care (7)Physical disability care (6)Learning disability care (3)Mental health care (5)Sensory impairment care (6)
Buckingham Home Care Limited
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Requires improvementCQC, Jan 2023
- Caring for children (0 - 18yrs)
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- +5 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
15 Catchpin Street
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Not yet rated · on the register 3 years
- Caring for children (0 - 18yrs)
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +2 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
ExemplaCare
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
GoodCQC, Mar 2023
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +4 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
Grace Hands Care Main Office
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Not yet rated · on the register 3 years
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +2 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
My Liberty Care Ltd
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
Newly registered, not yet rated
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +3 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
Levante Agency
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
GoodCQC, Nov 2022
- Sensory impairments
- Caring for adults under 65 yrs
- Dementia
- +4 more
- Hourly rate
- not published
- Pays carers for travel
- not published
- Shortest visit
- not published
Home care in Buckingham: questions people ask
- How much does home care cost in Buckingham?
- None of the 7 services in Buckingham publish a price, so you get a figure by ringing them: most quote by the hour after an assessment. The Homecare Association calculates that a provider needs to charge at least £34.42 an hour in 2026-27 to pay careworkers the statutory minimum for all their working time and run a compliant business. Two half-hour visits a day at that rate is roughly £481.88 a week. Buckinghamshire paid £23.00 an hour for the care it commissioned in 2023-24.
- Will the council pay for home care in Buckingham?
- Buckinghamshire can arrange and fund care after a needs assessment, which is free and which anyone can request. What you contribute depends on a separate financial assessment. It paid providers an average of £23.00 an hour in 2023-24, the 34th highest of 150 councils in England. The Homecare Association's minimum sustainable price is £34.42 for 2026-27. Those are different years, so treat the pair as context rather than a like-for-like gap. What a council pays shapes which agencies will take council-funded work at all.
- Which home care services in Buckingham are rated best?
- 4 of the 7 services in Buckingham carry a published CQC rating and 2 of those, 50%, are rated Good or Outstanding. None is rated Outstanding. A rating describes the service on the day it was inspected, so check the report date as well as the word.
- How do I choose a home care agency in Buckingham?
- Start with what the regulator publishes, then ask what it cannot tell you: who would actually visit, whether it is the same carer each time, what happens when that person is ill, and how long a call really lasts. 3 of the 7 services in Buckingham carry no published verdict at all, so for those the questions are the only evidence you have. Every service here comes from the public register, and contacting one costs nothing: we take no fee and no commission.
Local authority for Buckingham
Your council decides what care you are entitled to and what it will pay for, so it is worth knowing which one you fall under.