A carer app and care record for direct payment employers

1. What a direct payment is

Under the Care Act 2014 in England, and the equivalent law in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, a council that assesses someone as needing care can pay the money to the person or their family instead of arranging the care itself. That is a direct payment. The family then decides how to meet the needs in the care plan: usually by employing carers directly, sometimes through an agency, sometimes a mix.

Employing a carer directly makes you an employer. You agree the hours, pay them through PAYE, hold employer's liability insurance, and keep the records an employer keeps. Many councils fund a payroll service for this. What no council funds, and what most families go without, is the care record itself: who came, what they did, what medicine was given, and the hours that back up the payroll.

2. What the council expects you to keep

• How the money was spent. Councils review direct payment accounts, usually every year and sometimes more often. Bank statements show the payments; they do not show what hours were worked for them. A record of calls and hours per carer does.
• That the care plan is being met. A review asks whether the needs in the plan are being met. Visit notes written at the call, by the carer who was there, answer that in the carer's own words.
• Medication. If carers prompt, assist with or give medicines, a record of each dose is expected: given, refused, not required, and why. This is the medication administration record that every care provider keeps. A family employer is held to the same standard of care, if not the same inspection.
• Who worked. Which carer was at which call. If something is questioned later, "my son's carer was here on Tuesday" is not a record. A check-in stamped at the door on Tuesday at 07:31 is.
• Employer paperwork. Right to work, DBS if you chose to get one, the contract and the hours agreed. Councils and Skills for Care both publish guidance for personal assistant employers on this.

3. Why paper and group chats fall short

Most families run this on a kitchen diary, a WhatsApp group and memory. It works until it is tested. A carer leaves and takes the knowledge of the routine with them. The council asks for last quarter's hours and the diary has gaps. A dose is missed and nobody can say whether it was given or not, because the group chat says "all fine today". Two carers overlap on a Saturday and both are paid.

None of this is anyone's fault. It is what happens when the record is made from memory, after the event, in a place that cannot be searched. Care providers stopped working that way years ago. Families were simply never offered the tools.

4. How Carelo does it for a household

The same system providers use. Carelo is the care management platform UK domiciliary care providers run. The Personal plan is that system with the company parts removed and the pages built around one person: your loved one. Nothing is a lighter copy.

A rota you set once. Plan the week's calls and who covers them. Each carer sees their own calls in the Carelo app. Change a call and the carer's phone changes with it.

Check-in at your door. The carer checks in on the app when they arrive. The check-in carries the time and the location, so the record says they were at your home at 07:31, not that they say they were. A late call shows on your home page while it is still happening.

Notes written at the call. The carer writes what happened before they check out: what was eaten, how the morning went, anything to watch. You read it the same evening. The next carer reads it before their first call, in a diary that holds every note ever written about your loved one.

Medication, dose by dose. Every medicine is listed with its dose and times. At each call the carer records given, prompted, not required, refused, not given or other, with a reason where one is needed. You see the MAR chart the same day, with every carer's initials against every dose.

Hours to pay them. Hours this month per carer come from their real check-ins. Timesheets export for your payroll service. Holiday requests come to you to approve, with the gap in the rota shown before you say yes.

Paperwork dates. DBS and right-to-work dates are kept on each carer's record, and the Carers page tells you when one is running out.

5. Brothers, sisters and the family app

Care for a parent is rarely one person's job. A sister in another city wants to know the morning call happened. A brother wants to read what the carer wrote. Each family login opens the Carelo family app and sees the loved ones you choose: today's visits as they happen, every note, the medication log, and a message line to you. The first family login is included in the plan; each extra one is £10 a month, and you choose whether you pay or they do.

6. What it costs

The Personal plan is £30 a month per household, or £288 a year with 20% off. It covers up to three loved ones and fifteen carers, the carer app, the family app, setup and support. No VAT is added and there is no setup fee. There is a 14-day free trial and you can cancel any time. Many families pay it from the direct payment itself as a cost of managing the care; check your own council's rules on what the payment may cover.

Carelo does not run payroll, pay HMRC or arrange insurance. It keeps the care record and the hours that your payroll service and your council ask for.