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The Care We Need

The unpaid job most of us end up doing for someone we love, set out in plain steps.

The everyday work of caring for someone at home.

Terms of Use

Last updated: July 12, 2026

Terms pages are usually written so that only one side of the bargain is legible. This one is set out as two numbered lists, because a carer reading it at midnight deserves to know what is being promised and what is being refused without decoding anything.

Using thecareweneed.org means accepting what follows, alongside the Privacy Policy and the Disclaimer, which form part of these terms. If any of it does not suit you, the remedy is simply not to use the site.

What this site promises

  1. Everything published here is free to read, with nothing withheld. There is no paywall, no registration, no email capture and no premium tier, and there will not be one.
  2. There is no advertising, no sponsorship and no affiliate link on this site. No organisation has paid for a mention, and none ever will. If that changes, it will be stated on the page itself before you read the page, not in a footer.
  3. No care agency, care home, product, insurer or law firm is recommended here, in public or by email. Where you need to choose one, the site explains how to judge one.
  4. Clinical pages carry the name of the clinician who checked them, along with her credentials and the date. Pages without that byline have not been clinically reviewed, and they say so rather than letting you assume otherwise.
  5. Every rate, threshold, cost and statistic carries the year and the country it applies to, in the text, where you will see it.
  6. The money and entitlement pages are re-checked every spring, when most of these systems uprate, and the date on the page moves when a figure actually changes.
  7. Corrections are made on the page, not quietly. If a correction changes what a page told you to do, it is marked.
  8. Nothing you send is published, quoted or passed on without asking you first, and sensitive material about the person you look after is deleted rather than kept. See Privacy.
  9. You may reuse this material for care, without asking and without paying. Print a page and give it to a carer, put it in a ward folder, read it aloud at a support group, translate it for a relative. Please credit the site and do not present it as your own. Republishing substantially for commercial purposes, or feeding the site wholesale into a product, is not permitted, and the writing and structure otherwise remain the site’s own under copyright.

What this site does not promise

  1. Nobody here will contact anybody on your behalf. Not a doctor, a hospital, a ward, a council, a social worker, an insurer, a benefits office, a care agency or an employer. Nothing on this site, and nothing sent to its inbox, is an application, an appeal, a referral, a complaint or a notification of anything to anyone.
  2. No page here tells you what to give anyone. Doses, dose changes and decisions to give or withhold a medicine belong to the prescriber and the pharmacist, who can see the whole list. A page that appears to do otherwise is a mistake and should be reported.
  3. This site cannot tell you whether something is serious. It can tell you which signs mean the question is asked today rather than next week, and who to ask. That is a different thing, and it is the most it can do.
  4. It is not an emergency service, a crisis line or a monitored inbox. Messages are read when one person gets to them, which can take days. Nothing here is watching, and nobody is on call.
  5. It does not promise that anything here applies to you. Pages describe several health systems and none of them may match yours; entitlements, names and rules differ by country, region and sometimes by council or state. The body that administers a scheme decides, not this site.
  6. It does not promise that a figure is current. Figures are dated because they expire. Check the official source before you rely on one for a decision about money.
  7. It does not promise an outcome. Reading this site will not get you an assessment, a payment, a care package or a good discharge, and it cannot guarantee that following any suggestion here will help the person you look after.
  8. It cannot warrant that everything here is complete or free of error, and to the fullest extent the law allows, The Care We Need is not liable for loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, this site. It is provided as it is.

Fair use of the site itself

Please use the site in the ordinary way. Do not attempt to disrupt or overload it, scrape it through automated tools that place an unreasonable burden on it, or use it for an unlawful purpose.

Other people’s websites

Links point outward to health services, statutory bodies, regulators and national carer organisations. Those sites are not controlled from here and their content, accuracy and privacy practices are their own.

Changes

These terms change as the site grows and as the law does, and the date at the top reflects the current version. Questions about them go through Contact.