Domiciliary care or ‘homecare’ is social care provided in people’s homes and includes a range of support such as help with daily tasks, personal care and help with mobilising. Domiciliary care faces a number of longstanding challenges including funding, market fragility, demographic changes and workforce stability.
The provision of high-quality homecare is central to realising ambitions set out in A Healthier Wales for a focus on preventative, person-centred, community-based care with greater joined-up working between health and social care. The majority of domiciliary care in Wales is provided by the private sector and the Welsh Government is committed to ‘rebalancing the market’. We were asked by the First Minister to review selected examples of alternative models of domiciliary care, that have been developed elsewhere in the UK and in other countries, which may offer valuable insights for Wales.