Hourly Home Caregiver Visits
Hourly Caregiving services are in-home visits between 1 hour and 12 hours long and generally take place between 0700-2200.Minimum Visits
as low as 1 hour, including the 15 minutes for travel. This can help to make care more affordable - especially for people who require multiple short visits each day.
- Most private Home Care providers have minimum visit lengths of at least 2 to 4 hours.
- Some private Home Care providers also have minimum hours per week or monthly subscription fees.
- Government Home Care may provide shorter visits, half an hour (or less in some circumstances).
- For clients in remote areas, more of the 1 hour minimum may be used for travel if the care requirements are shorter like medication admin or quick meal prep.
Travel Time
for hourly visits is normally 15 minutes of the scheduled visit time.
- Example: A two hour visit would have 15 minutes of the 120 minutes allocated for the travel time required. Travel time usually happens at the end of the visit so someone scheduled 1000-1200 would be leaving at 1145AM.
Rural Travel Time
for hourly visits is the round-trip travel to the client and back from the nearest populated area.
- A client living 30 minutes drive from town would be 60 minutes travel time plus the time required for tasks
- If the task requirements are more brief it's possible to have a 60 minute visit with more travel time and a shorter in-person time for tasks
- Government does not have the same travel costs and they have more caregivers across Geography which is why they are often the pragmatic choice for remote hourly support
- Questions? Call us 250-658-6508
Earlier Morning Care Requests
and early morning availability from caregivers are both infrequent and, for that reason, unsustainable for ongoing service.
Scheduling an early morning service by exception may be possible but comes with a risk of cancellation or late arrival.- Ongoing services starting at 0600 or earlier are not feasible because there are not enough caregivers who are willing to start at that time to provide stable ongoing support.
- It may be possible to accommodate a one-off 0600 visit for an appointment. However, if the scheduled worker had a short notice absence then the risk to the client of no replacement at that specific time may be high. We try to have replacements in mind or prepared when there is one available.
- If a caregiver needs to be present starting in the very late or very early morning hours between 2300-0500 the only service options are Live-in or Overnight visits.
Pro-tip: It is a Red Flag when agencies claim you get the “full hour you paid for”. Travel is a cost of the service and these providers are shifting the travel cost onto their caregivers as unpaid time. This practice is not compliant with BC labour law and a bad idea in general if the provider wants to retain quality caregivers or if the family wants consistent service.