Do You Employ your Own Carers Privately?

Isn’t it strange how some days you can’t remember what went on the day before and yet events from decades ago are recalled as though they are playing out before your eyes at the very moment you are thinking of them?

You may wonder what that question has to do with employing carers directly rather than going through a home care provider. If I may crave your indulgence for a short time and ask you to read on you’ll see how it all fits together. If you do employ your own carers or are thinking of doing so, I’m going to tell you about a fantastic little tool that you can use for dealing with tax and national insurance.

Anyway, back to the question in the first paragraph. One such event (from decades ago) is playing out for me in my mind’s eye at this very moment as I type. I was about nine or ten, at school and doing some kind of survey. The two classmates I was working with told me I had to record the information differently from how I was doing it. I just could not accept that I couldn’t do things my way; even though they were right and I was wrong.

There are two important points that emerge from this story. First, if you want to do something you should go ahead and do it whatever the opposition (there are a string of exceptions to this like not doing things that are illegal, but I won’t go into these). Second (with the same exceptions applying), you should still continue doing what you are doing, even if what you are doing is wrong (not in the sense of being illegal), or not what others might think is the wisest move on your part.  

For many years, much of our health and social care system has been provided on a paternalistic basis. What I mean by this is that there is always someone who thinks they know what is best for us. As you may imagine from what I said above, I have always been of the view that each of us, most of the time, is best placed to know what is best for us. And even if we want to do something that’s a little risky, we should be allowed to make our own mistakes.

There was a time, and it is a time that is not so very long ago, it was almost unthinkable that you could employ your own carers, or personal assistants. But things have changed. Just because you will become an employer and have a number of duties and responsibilities imposed upon you is not an argument for not employing your own carers. Becoming an employer might be daunting but there is plenty of help available.

I know that one of the most daunting things is dealing with tax, national insurance and pensions. If you employ people, you will be responsible for ensuring that their tax and national insurance are calculated and paid.

From 2018, all employers will be responsible for offering workplace pensions for their employees. The date from which the requirement to provide a pension starts depends upon how many people you employ. For further information; look at this page.

If you employ carers, you will need to submit information to HMRC online, something that goes by the name Real Time Information or RTI. For more information on this; go to this page.

How, then, do you submit information online? There are a number of systems that are available. Most you will have to pay for. There is, however, one system that is free, very simple to use and is provided by HMRC itself. It’s called HMRC Basic PAYE Tools. You can download the software here. HMRC gets a great deal of criticism; however, they should be congratulated for this.

When I first started in business, I used this tool for about a year and a half. The only reason I stopped using it is because you can only have a maximum of fifteen people on it. You don’t have to worry about calculations as the amounts of tax and national insurance that have to be paid are calculated for you. I understand it can also be used to handle pension contributions, although I never used it for this.

Way back in the second paragraph, I asked you to keep reading as it would be worthwhile. If you try the Basic PAYE Tool I think you will agree that reading to the end was worthwhile. If you use it let me know what you think. I’ll be interested to know.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Are You Looking to Work in Home Care?

Caremark Thanet: Providers of Outstanding Domiciliary Care to the Residents of Thanet...

...are looking recruit a small number of care and support workers to supplement our existing team. We are looking for people to cover: Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Westgate, Birchington and Sandwich.

We currently have a particular demand for people who are available to work weekends and/or evenings

If you would like to find out more about the opportunities that are available with us please telephone me on 01843 235910. However, before you do that, please read the following article:

http://thanetcare.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/what-do-we-look-for-in-potential.html

This article tells you a great deal about the type of company we are and what we look for in care and support workers.

You can also visit our website: www.caremark.co.uk

and Facebook page: facebook.com/caremarkthanet

If you feel that we are the type of company that you would like to work for: telephone me now.

Do You Want to Work as a Live-in Care Worker

Caremark Thanet: Providers of Outstanding Domiciliary Care to the Residents of Thanet

We are looking to recruit a small number of live-in care and support workers. At the moment we have a particular demand in Broadstairs.

If you would like to find out more about the opportunities that are available with us please telephone me on 01843 235910. However, before you do that, please read the following article:

http://thanetcare.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/what-do-we-look-for-in-potential.html

This article tells you a great deal about the type of company we are and what we look for in care and support workers.

You can also visit our website: www.caremark.co.uk

and Facebook page: facebook.com/caremarkthanet

If you feel that we are the type of company that you would like to work for: telephone me now.

Caremark Thanet Announces a New Appointment

My name is Garry Costain and I’m the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet. We are a domiciliary care provider serving the Isle of Thanet. We have been providing home care services to the residents of Thanet since 2012. In that short time, we have developed a reputation for the outstanding quality of the services we provide.

We are a business. We are part of the service sector. We provide a very important service to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We are only too acutely aware that the quality of the services that we provide will only be as good as the people who provide those services for us. For that reason, we believe that the people who work for us are the most important people in our business, and that good people are worth investing in. For the same reason, we believe that we have an absolute right to be very choosy about the people that we select to become part of our team.

Recently, our business has reached the point where we need to appoint people to roles that will help us ensure that the business continues to run smoothly and that we continue to provide the highest quality care to our customers. The quality of care we deliver is something upon which we will never compromise. We are, therefore, very pleased to announce the appointment of a new Field Care Supervisor, Jo White.

Field Care Supervisors are the people who manage our day to day care activities. A key function carried out by them is to provide a conduit through which customers can talk about and be involved in their care.

Jo has lived in Thanet all her life and attended Hartsdown school. She comes to us with a wealth of experience having worked in care for over 25 years. She has worked in several areas of care including working with children and adults. Jo is married, has three children and enjoys spending time with her family. Outside of work, Jo keeps herself pretty busy. She is a dog lover and gets plenty of exercise walking her dogs. Her interests include watching local bands, cooking, reading, going shopping and to the cinema.

Everyone at Caremark Thanet extends a very warm welcome to Jo in her new role.

If you’d like more information about working for Caremark Thanet; please contact me on 01843 235910.

Lonely This Christmas

Christmas is a time for being with family; it’s a time for sharing gifts with friends; a time for creating memories.   For some, amongst whom are many of society’s most vulnerable,  their families will be absent this Christmas; there will be no friends to share this season with, and their memories of Christmases gone by will be all they have.

Loneliness does not discriminate. It is an emotion that has no sympathy for illness, for gender, for status or age. Though it is an emotion to which age makes us more susceptible. And loneliness is felt more keenly at Christmas when the shadow of everyday loneliness lengthens.

The facts on loneliness and isolation make uncomfortable reading. There are about 3.5 million people in the UK aged 65 and over who live alone. Many of the 65 and over age group report that they have contact with family, friends or neighbours less than once a week; that they feel trapped in their homes; that they have no help to go out; feel socially isolated, and have no one to turn to for help.

If you found those facts a little disturbing; prepare yourself for this: in 2010, in the UK, 500,000 people aged 65 and over spent Christmas day alone. That was in 2010. I have not looked for figures for other years; I suspect they will be little different from 2010. I suspect, when someone comes to do the calculation for Christmas 2015, the figure also will be about the same.

You probably know someone who lives alone. It’s never easy to know how to help.  The NHS Choices website – especially the page: Loneliness in the Elderly: How to Help – has some very good advice. The things we can do to help are often quite simple. This Christmas, the most important gift we give might be something as simple as saying hello to a neighbour.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email: garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Home Care's Golden Thread: Communication

I'm the managing director of Caremark Thanet. Caremark Thanet is a family run business providing care in peoples’ homes. Home care providers like us are businesses; businesses that are part of the service sector. Like any business in any sector, we aim to provide the highest level of customer service that we can.

Customer service has many facets. One facet that is of importance for all businesses is communication.  We provide services to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.  We know; therefore, that for our customers, communication is of particular concern. For this reason, there is a golden thread that runs through all that we do. And it is this:  We always keep you, our customers, informed.

Few people like uncertainty. Whilst uncertainty cannot be eliminated, one of the things we strive to do at Caremark Thanet is to reduce it as much as we can. A sure way to reduce uncertainty is with good communication.  Uncertainty presents itself in different forms. One type of uncertainty occurs when you cannot get answers.  We always try to provide you with swift answers to your questions.

We know that one of the things that you appreciate greatly is that when you telephone us you get to speak with someone who can help you. We may not always have the answer, but we usually know where to find it. We may not have the answer that you want, but we believe that it is better to have the answer than to have no answer at all.  And when we say we’ll ring you back; that’s exactly what we do: we ring you back.

Uncertainty also occurs when things change. Unfortunately, change is a fact of life. Sometimes the world conspires against us and changes are forced upon us – for example, a carer’s car tyre has a puncture when she is on her way to you. When something like this happens, we always try to let you know what is happening as soon as we can.

We are by no means perfect. However, keeping you informed is at the heart of what we do. And on the whole we make a pretty good job of it.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet's website at www.caremark.co.uk/thanet.

Who Are Caremark Thanet?

Who Are We?

We are a domiciliary care provider serving the Isle of Thanet. We have been providing home care services to the residents of Thanet since 2012. In that short time we have developed a reputation for the outstanding quality of the services we provide.

There are two of us at the head of the company: Jayne Costain is the Director of Care and Registered Care Manager. My name is Garry Costain and I'm the Managing Director. Jayne has gained a wealth of experience in health care from working as a nurse for over fifteen years. My background lies in education and management.

Our offices are on the Westwood Industrial Estate in Margate. We offer care and support services throughout Thanet, including: Acol, Birchington, Broadstairs and St Peters, Cliffsend, Manston, Margate, Westgate on Sea, Minster, Monkton, Ramsgate and St Nicholas-at-Wade.

Our Philosophy

Our aim is to provide outstanding domiciliary care to each of our customers. On that we will never compromise. To achieve our aim we believe that our starting point is to recognize that:

1.     Our customers are entitled to expect us to fit our services to their needs; we are never entitled to expect our customers to fit their needs to our services.

2.     It is our duty to do all we can to help our customers remain independent and living in their homes for as long as they wish.

3.     Upholding the dignity, supporting the independence and promoting the safety of each of our customers are paramount.

4.     Without our customers our services would not be required.

5.     We are only as good as the services provided to our customers by our care and support workers. For that reason, we have a right to be very selective in the people we choose to provide those services.

6.     The people who provide our services to our customers are the most important people in our company.

To find out more about us visit our:

Website: www.caremark.co.uk/thanet

Blog: http://thanetcare.blogspot.co.uk/

and Facebook page:  facebook.com/caremarkthanet