Home care in South East England
There are 2734 home care services in South East England registered with the Care Quality Commission. 1245 carry a published CQC rating, and 1127 of those are rated Good or Outstanding. The other 1489 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. They sit across 64 local authorities, so pick the area that covers you.
Local authorities
- Adur11
- Arun41
- Ashford41
- Basingstoke and Deane50
- Bracknell Forest31
- Brighton and Hove66
- Buckinghamshire144
- Canterbury47
- Cherwell39
- Chichester36
- Crawley53
- Dartford72
- Dover30
- East Hampshire27
- Eastbourne36
- Eastleigh37
- Elmbridge27
- Epsom and Ewell26
- Fareham30
- Folkestone and Hythe21
- Gosport13
- Gravesham35
- Guildford21
- Hart31
- Hastings17
- Havant28
- Horsham27
- Isle of Wight41
- Lewes22
- Maidstone59
- Medway124
- Mid Sussex27
- Milton Keynes183
- Mole Valley31
- New Forest39
- Oxford45
- Portsmouth63
- Reading67
- Reigate and Banstead46
- Rother14
- Runnymede34
- Rushmoor33
- Sevenoaks21
- Slough74
- South Oxfordshire28
- Southampton109
- Spelthorne19
- Surrey Heath30
- Swale39
- Tandridge26
- Test Valley40
- Thanet32
- Tonbridge and Malling35
- Tunbridge Wells25
- Vale of White Horse43
- Waverley34
- Wealden27
- West Berkshire43
- West Oxfordshire22
- Winchester49
- Windsor and Maidenhead32
- Woking31
- Wokingham54
- Worthing40
Towns in South East England
- Milton Keynes 170
- Southampton 157
- Reading 106
- Slough 90
- Dartford 75
- Portsmouth 57
- Maidstone 54
- Chatham 54
- Aylesbury 54
- Crawley 53
- Oxford 48
- Worthing 46
- Basingstoke 46
- Ashford 41
- Rochester 40
- Brighton 40
- Fareham 39
- High Wycombe 38
- Eastbourne 37
- Gravesend 35
- Gillingham 34
- Canterbury 33
- Woking 33
- Chichester 32
By type of care in South East England
- Dementia care (2072)
- Elderly care (2452)
- Physical disability care (2202)
- Learning disability care (1373)
- Mental health care (1510)
- Sensory impairment care (1602)
- Children's care (459)
- Substance misuse support (305)
Home care in South East England: questions people ask
- How much does home care cost in South East England?
- Agencies in South East England quote by the hour after an assessment, so there is no single price. 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.
- Will the council pay for home care in South East England?
- Your council can arrange and fund care after a needs assessment, which is free and which anyone can ask for. What you pay towards it depends on a separate financial assessment of income and capital. Councils in England paid independent providers an average of £25.05 an hour in 2026-27, against a minimum sustainable price of £34.42, which is why council-funded hours and privately bought hours are often priced differently.
- Which home care services in South East England are rated best?
- 1245 of the 2734 services in South East England carry a published CQC rating and 1127 of those, 91%, are rated Good or Outstanding. That is above the 89% across England. 71 are rated Outstanding, the top grade, among them Hale Place Farmhouse, Inchwater Home Care and Home Instead Senior Care (Maidstone). 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 South East England?
- 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. 1489 of the 2734 services in South East England 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.