Home care in Reading

Home care in Reading: questions people ask

How much does home care cost in Reading?

None of the 106 services in Reading 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. Reading paid £21.72 an hour for the care it commissioned in 2023-24.

Will the council pay for home care in Reading?

Reading 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 £21.72 an hour in 2023-24, the 61st 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 Reading are rated best?

52 of the 106 services in Reading carry a published CQC rating and 45 of those, 87%, are rated Good or Outstanding. That is below the 89% across England. 1 is rated Outstanding, the top grade: Bluebird Care (Reading, Wokingham, Windsor, Maidenhead, Bracknell). 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 Reading?

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. 54 of the 106 services in Reading 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 authorities covering Reading

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.

• Reading 66
• Wokingham 21
• West Berkshire 16
• South Oxfordshire 3

Companies running more than one service in Reading

Several branches under one owner. Ratings are given per branch, so a group with a good reputation can still have a weak one near you.

• Reading Borough Council 3 here
• Voyage 1 Limited 2 here of 44

Nearby towns

• Milton Keynes 170
• Southampton 157
• Slough 90
• Dartford 75
• Portsmouth 57
• Maidstone 54
• Chatham 54
• Aylesbury 54
• Crawley 53
• Oxford 48
• Worthing 46
• Basingstoke 46