Visiting Angels is about a lot more than just a catchy jingle. The company has been providing quality home care around the world for over 20 years. Made up of a network of franchised home care agencies, Visiting Angels is dedicated to providing patients with the best in-home care service possible and family members with peace of mind. In-home care gives ageing adults and their loved ones another option when it comes to choosing the right care for their needs, budget, and preferences. 

If you’re considering in-home care for yourself or a family member, you’ve probably heard of Visiting Angels but aren’t sure if it’s the best option for you. We’re here to provide a deep review on Visiting Angels, including care options, cost, and client testimonials so you can make a decision both you and your loved one are comfortable with. 

About Visiting Angels 

Visiting Angels was first established in 1998 in the hopes of providing quality in-home care to ageing adults and a sense of relief to loved ones and family members. For some senior citisens, ageing in place offers the ideal scenario. It allows them to receive the care they need in the comfort of their own homes, regardless of how complex their health issues are. 

Visiting Angels treats all of its patients with dignity and respect. Staff members are highly qualified, compassionate, and professional. Visiting Angels helps patients find the best elder care provider for their unique needs, preferences, and medical conditions. Patients can choose from different skills, training, credentials, and other specifications, giving them control over their comfort and lifestyle. Your loved one’s well-being, health, and happiness are a top priority at Visiting Angels. 

Visiting Angels recognises that every patient’s needs, condition, comfort level, and budget are different. That’s why they offer a wide range of in-home care services that meet temporary, short-term, and long-term care needs. These include hourly care and rates, overnight care and rates, and 24-hour care. Visiting Angels creates a personalised and individualised care plan for every patient, focusing on activities for daily living.

Care options include

• Personal care and hygiene
• Companionship
• Respite care
• Meal prep and planning
• Housekeeping 
• Laundry assistance
• Running errands
• Medication reminders and administration 

Patients can pick and choose which services they require to build a customised plan. These plans can also be adjusted as your needs and preferences change. The main focus of Visiting Angels is to maintain their patient’s pride, integrity, and independence. By offering both companionship and bespoke care, elderly patients who prefer to remain in their homes and close to family and friends can do so safely without compromising their health.

Getting Started with Visiting Angels

Like many rival care agencies, visiting Angels serves thousands of ageing adults and their loved ones in and around the UK and the United States. Finding a location, caregiver, and type of service for your unique circumstances is easy using the Visiting Angel website.

Click on “Home Care Near You” on the website’s homepage. This will direct you to a page used for finding your local Visiting Angels office. There are a few ways to do this. First, you can enter your location (postal code or town) and adjust the radius of your search from as close as 5 miles to as far as 100 miles. You can also browse the list of office locations on the left-hand side of the page. Lastly, an interactive map has pinned locations of all the Visiting Angel’s offices in and around the UK. Simply click on a pin on or near your location for more information. 

You can also visit the website’s contact page and send a direct message for more information or to ask specific questions regarding your loved one’s care. This page will ask for your name, contact number with the best time to call, email address, town or city, how you heard about the company, and more information about your enquiry. 

Types of Care Visiting Angels Provides

Visiting Angels prides itself on offering individualised care that meets the unique needs of every patient and their family members. That means choosing from a wide range of services and types of care. Here are some of the company’s most popular and beneficial programs to choose from. 

Personal Care

Personal Care involves having a personal caregiver offer support and supervision over your daily living tasks and personal hygiene. This includes things like dressing, toileting, and maintaining an overall healthy appearance. Other tasks like bed baths, applying lotion or cream, and assisting in the bath or shower may also be provided. Specially trained carers may also offer foot care, oral hygiene, and help with makeup application or hairdressing to ensure the individual is always looking and feeling their best. All personal care is discreet with the individual’s dignity and comfort in mind.

Visiting Angels assigns a personal care assistant to every patient based on their location, needs, and personality. These assistants provide the necessary and essential in-home support that your loved one desperately needs while maintaining the dignity they deserve. In certain situations, the carer may need to offer hands-on support that involves touching or moving the patient. This is especially common for individuals with mobility issues or those recovering from a recent surgery or injury. 

Both Personal Care and Companion Care (see below) are non-medical services that focus more on preventing isolation and providing companionship than on addressing or monitoring health conditions. 

Companion Care

For older adults who need support and assistance with daily tasks, Visiting Angel offers Companion Care. These services include things like help running errands, light housekeeping, and meal prep and planning. Companion Care is a great solution for seniors who are still mobile and cognitively aware but still need some support performing everyday activities. Companion Care allows loved ones to remain in their homes safely without the need for advanced assistance. 

Visiting Angels provides professional, non-medical professionals to provide Companion Care that helps improve the patient’s state of mind, attitude, and confidence. It also provides social interactions to those adults who can’t leave their homes. This reduces the risk of depression or feelings of hopelessness and isolation. This is why Visiting Angels describes their Companion Care as “emotional and physical assistance” for both seniors and disabled adults. 

Other benefits of Visiting Angels Companion Care services include

• Accompany patients on outings and appointments
• Engaging in pleasant conversation 
• Participating in hobbies and activities 

By preventing depression and isolation through companionship, Companion Care can actually offer physical health benefits. For example, content and socialised adults are less likely to develop dementia, are at less risk for suicide or anxiety, and are less likely to end up hospitalised. By adding compassion, consistency, and socialization to a person’s life, care providers with Visiting Angels help break the dangerous cycle of isolation and bring ageing adults happiness and purpose.

More than just a care provider for seniors and disabled adults, Visiting Angels Companion Care also offers benefits to family members. Many family members of ageing loved ones struggle to balance their own daily obligations and the emotional, physical, and financial toll of caring for their loved ones. Visiting Angels Companion Care helps supplement the time when family members can’t be present due to other obligations and commitments. 

Respite Care

Over 5 million family members are providing unpaid elder care to their loved ones. While this is a selfless act, it can take its toll over time – both emotionally and financially. Respite Care offers loved ones of aging adults a much-needed reprieve. By offering supplemental care, adult caregivers can fulfill their own obligations like attending business meetings or traveling, running errands, and simply taking a much-needed break. Visiting Angels offers Respite Care in times of need.

Respite Care is temporary or short-term home care provided in the absence of the patient’s full-time family caregiver. Utilizing Visiting Angels Respite Care services helps ageing adults and their loved ones maintain a healthy, happy relationship by giving them a much-needed break.

One of the greatest benefits of Respite Care is flexibility. Family members can hire caregivers for a few hours, a few days, overnight, or longer. Respite Care also includes routine in-home services on a weekly or monthly basis. These services can supplement what the family member is already doing or fill in the gaps with services loved ones aren’t prepared or willing to perform. 

Respite Caregivers at Visiting Angels offer a wide range of services, some of which fall under the category of Personal Care while others are defined as Companion Care. 

• Meal planning and preparation
• Light housekeeping
• Laundry
• Medication reminders
• Dressing, grooming, and bathing.

Some Respite Caregivers are specially trained in assisting patients with specific conditions, including Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. These specialised services give family members peace of mind, knowing they’re leaving their loved ones in good hands and with qualified and knowledgeable caregivers. 

Hiring Visiting Angels Respite Care services also helps reduce the risk of caregiver burnout, which could negatively impact your ability to continue providing care to the ageing adult in your life. When you need a break from your duties and workload, Respite Care can help. Schedule a home care consultation for free and with no obligation. During this visit, the Visiting Angels caregiver will determine what type of service is needed and answer any questions you might have. Visiting Angels also offers Respite Care on short notice thanks to the fast-track planning and scheduling process. 

Specialised Home Care

In addition to offering care and support for everyday tasks and responsibilities, Visiting Angels also provide specialised home care based on the individual’s needs and condition. Here are some of Visiting Angels’ specialised services. 

Fall Prevention

Visiting Angels has its own Safe and Steady fall prevention program to help reduce the risk senior citizens face of slipping, tripping, and falling at home. Even minor slips and falls can cause serious injury to some seniors, including hospitalization, permanent disability, loss of independence, or death. With 1 in 3 ageing adults suffering from a serious fall every year, this is an important service to consider. 

Some of the main causes of falls in the elderly include

• Limited mobility
• Decreased coordination 
• Reduced strength
• Compromised eyesight
• Lack of coordination 
• Hearing loss
• Cognitive deterioration 
• Side effects of medications
• Stiff or painful joints

The Visiting Angel’s guide for fall prevention provides valuable information and assistance to loved ones, helping you keep the senior citizen in your life healthy and safe. The guide helps reduce the risk of falls while also helping you identify the warning signs. It also covers the following information.

• Precautions and safety checks for reducing falls
• Home design and layout changes to help ensure senior safety and reduce at-home falls
• Beneficial lifestyle changes to keep seniors safe
• Environmental risk factors that may increase fall risks and dangers
• The physical, emotional, and social effects that a fall has on ageing adults

You’ll also find a comprehensive home safety checklist in this guide and a list of simple home modifications that could be the difference between your loved one living a long, healthy, and independent life or facing a life-threatening fall. 

Social Care

Social Care is a key element in keeping aging seniors happy and healthy while reducing their risk of depression and isolation. Whether the patient’s family lives near or far, Visiting Angel’s Social Care services guarantee that homebound seniors remain in close contact with their family and loved ones.

Visiting Angels caregivers utilise modern technology to provide a holistic approach to quality care. By helping seniors connect using Facebook, Skype, Facetime, and other interacting tools, ageing adults can see, hear, and speak with their friends and loved ones from across the country and even around the world! A lack of technological knowledge shouldn’t keep your loved ones from socialising or connecting with those who matter most. Visiting Angels caregivers help patients adopt a digital social life and navigate new technology, including using a cell phone to send text messages and emails, making video calls using Facetime or Skype, using popular search engines, and creating accounts on social media to connect with friends and loved ones.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s Care

Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease affect more than 55 million people worldwide. Cognitive degeneration is just as difficult for the family members of the diagnosed as it is for the Dementia patients themselves. As their memory and function deteriorate, many individuals experience mood swings, outbursts, and changes in their personalities that are difficult for family members to cope with. The patient’s memory also slowly fades, with many patients not recognizing or remembering their close relatives toward the end.

Visiting Angels understand this struggle, and skilled caregivers are ready and waiting to provide the necessary support and education to navigate these difficult diagnoses. Visiting Angels offers early-stage, mid-stage, and late-stage Dementia services. Caregivers are trained in handling a wide range of Dementia types and other cognitive disorders including

• Lewy Body Dementia
• Huntington’s disease
• Vascular Dementia
• Frontotemporal Dementia
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Young-onset Dementia
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
• Parkinson’s diseases
• Mixed Dementia
• Down syndrome 

Visiting Angel caregivers create specialised care plans for patients with these types of cognitive disorders. Services are also available for the family and loved ones of the Dementia patient. Support and relief help make caregiving for family members more manageable. 

Although Alzheimer’s disease is a form of Dementia and these two conditions are often linked, there are some subtle differences. As you can see, there are various types of Dementia, each with its own cause and symptoms. That’s why Visiting Angels takes an individualised approach to Dementia care by crafting personalised plans. 

Beneficial services include

• Wandering prevention
• Companionship
• Accompaniment and transportation to appointments
• Laundry and light housekeeping
• Managing changing emotions (anxiety, anger, confusion)
• Meal preparation and planning
• Prescription pick up
• Grocery shopping and other errands
• Bathing and toileting
• Mobility and transportation assistance
• Assistance with grooming and dressing

The beauty of Visiting Angel’s Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease care is that you can customise it to fit your loved one’s unique needs and situation. You can also choose assistance that benefits both you, the caregiver, and your family member, helping maintain a healthy, balanced relationship.

Palliative Care

Palliative Care is reserved for patients facing serious medical conditions or diagnoses that need hands-on, around-the-clock care and support. Caregivers at Visiting Angels are trained to provide physical, emotional, social, and spiritual guidance and support. The ultimate goal of Palliative Care is to enhance the patient’s quality of life and give families peace of mind that their loved one is being cared for by a compassionate and educated caregiver. 

Although Palliative Care is often associated with end-of-life care or hospice, there are some differences between these types of care. Hospice care is provided to patients with a limited life expectancy. In contrast, Palliative Care is appropriate following a chronic illness diagnosis, regardless of how long the person is predicted to live. Palliative Care is also given alongside other treatments, while all other treatments stop once someone enters Hospice care.

Visiting Angel’s Palliative Care program also takes a holistic approach to healing, which is one feature that sets it apart from other providers. By focusing on comprehensive care, Visiting Angels treats the whole patient – physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. Physical care means providing personal comfort, whereas emotional support helps patients navigate complicated feelings like anxiety, depression, and anger while also accepting their circumstances. Social support includes developing a close bond and relationship while they also explore spirituality through a sense of inner peace and comfort.

End-of-life Care

As the name suggests, End-of-Life Care offered by Visiting Angels provides both emotional and physical support and assistance to patients during their final stages of life. Visiting Angel’s experienced caregivers provide the necessary assistance so loved ones can spend memorable and meaningful moments with their family members.

Although End-of-Life Care is non-medical assistance, a trained caregiver will provide your loved one with comfort – both physical and emotional – so they are free of pain and in a peaceful place of acceptance. Caregivers are skilled in providing whatever the patient needs in their final months, weeks, and days to improve their quality of life. 

End-of-life care not only offers the patient suffering comfort and peace of mind but also their loved ones. Visiting Angel caregivers carry some of the physical burden of administering care toward the end while also offering emotional relief to the family members of the patient who are struggling with the severity of the circumstances.

In addition to companionship, Visiting Angels also offer the following services as part of their End of Life program. 

• Assist with personal tasks like bathing, hygiene, grooming, and dressing
• Offer pain management 
• Increase comfort and improve quality of life
• Offer companionship to reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, isolation, and loneliness
• Enhance emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being 

Palliative and hospice care are two of the most common types of End of Life care offered to terminally ill patients. Visiting Angels can help you decide which type of care best suits your situation and your loved ones’ final wishes. 

Ready, Set, Go Home 

This service from Visiting Angels helps elderly patients skip the hectic, stressful, and expensive trips to the hospital. The transitional program offers the resources and support seniors need to adjust to home life following a lengthy or short hospital stay. Ready, Set, Go Home is designed to prevent readmittance into the hospital and reduce the risk of re-injury by preventing certain incidents and mishaps. 

Visiting Angels offers several services designed to reduce the risk of injury or reoccurrence in the home, keeping patients safe at home and out of the hospital. These include

• Dressing and personal grooming
• Bathing and toileting
• Mobility and transportation
• Running errands
• Meal planning and preparation
• Medication reminders
• Routine daily activities

Trained caregivers work to prevent common causes of readmission to the hospital like

• Weakness
• Fatigue
• Confusion and foggy thinking
• Bladder or boil troubles
• Stress and anxiety
• Disorientation 
• Disrupted daily routines, including sleep, diet, and other activities

You and your loved ones can also use Visiting Angels’ post-hospital home care plans and discharge guide to answer basic questions about hospitalization, preventing injuries, and more. 

Types of Caregivers and Qualifications 

Some of the most important questions people have regarding Visiting Angels and the care they provide are: what type of training and qualifications do staff members have? Not all caregivers or positions require the same education, training, skills, or credentials. For example, personal care and Companion Care are non-medical services that don’t require a nursing certificate or any in-depth medical expertise. Other services, including Palliative Care and Dementia Care, require providers to undergo extensive training and gain valuable knowledge about managing these conditions.

Visiting Angels hires caregivers on both a part-time and full-time basis. Almost anyone can be a caregiver through Visiting Angels, as long as they have the necessary qualifications, personality traits, and qualifications. A full list of these requirements can be found here, but a few attributes that all members of the Visiting Angels team should have include

• Excellent communication skills
• Strong time management skills
• Attention to detail and organization
• A kind, warm, and loving spirit
• Compassion and empathy
• Patience
• Motivation and a positive bedside manner

All caregivers must also be prepared to assist with daily tasks, provide emotional support, set medication reminders, meal plan and prep, shop and run errands, perform light cleaning, and help with self-care tasks like grooming, bathing, and dressing. Visiting Angels works hard to match caregivers and patients who share the same interests and personality traits to ease the transition and provide the highest level of care and comfort.

Visiting Angel Reviews

Here are some Visting Angel reviews from across the Internet to show what real patients and family members have to say about Visiting Angel’s home care.

Visiting Angels and their amazing team is truly a blessing. My aging father needed care but wasn’t ready to leave his home. The Angels made it possible for him to stay in his own home for as long as possible. They gave me peace of mind that he was cared for with compassion and dignity. They were diligent and communicative, the caregivers were kind and flexible. I am so grateful for the care they gave my father. I will always be thankful! – Emily

I could not have asked for a better caregiver for my mother’s last 6 months… They were there for me and loved my momma. She just loved the caregiver.  – Merlyn

They helped me with a shower, cooking, and a few little chores around the house we were not able to do. They were able to help us out with anything we asked them to do. – John S.

We are able to keep her in her home. The agency makes an effort to match the client’s needs to the caregiver. They provide excellent support. – Debbie H.

They try to be helpful and schedule people there to help. The caregivers could be more thoughtful and caring. – William B.

They help me do household chores, so I don’t have to spend time on those. I can leave him or get out and walk. I have had four different caregivers, and some were as different as night and day. – Florence

Let an Angel Visit Your Home Today

With specialised services for most conditions and difficulties facing seniors today, Visiting Angels may just be the answer to your prayers that you’ve been looking for. With a compassionate staff and tailored services to meet your unique needs and budget, you’re sure to find home care services that bring you peace of mind and your loved one comfort and independence.

Learn more here about Visiting Angel’s mission to provide high-quality care on your terms. You can also browse other home care options at Compare Caring.