Home care by the hour in Rota
Rota has a group of older residents you will not find anywhere else on this coast: people who arrived decades ago with the Navy or on holiday, stayed, and are now growing old in a country whose language they never fully learned. While life is straightforward that barely matters. The moment health becomes an issue, it turns into the main problem.
Growing old in a second language
Someone who has lived in Spain for forty years manages perfectly well day to day. What happens is that illness and age draw on vocabulary nobody ever learned: the names of symptoms, the doctor’s instructions, the words for parts of the body.
There is something less comfortable to say that also happens. With several forms of cognitive decline, people lose the acquired language first and return to their mother tongue. Someone who spoke reasonable Spanish at seventy may stop doing so at eighty-five, and the family is often the last to notice.
That is why an English-speaking carer here is not a premium extra. It is what allows a person to say where it hurts and understand what is about to be done to them, which is the difference between being cared for and being handled.
Going to the doctor means translating
At the health centre, and above all at specialist appointments outside Rota, what families ask for is someone present who understands both sides. Not to make decisions, but so the person leaves knowing what they were told, with the instructions written down.
This is what families living abroad value most, because it removes the anxiety of never quite knowing what happened at an appointment they could not attend.
When the family is two thousand kilometres away
That is the situation in most of these cases. Children in the UK, in the United States or elsewhere in Europe, visiting two or three times a year, with every piece of information passing through us.
So we are systematic about it. An agreed summary at an agreed frequency, immediate notice of any change or fall, and clarity about who to contact. Improvising means somebody discovers at Christmas that their mother has not left the house in three weeks.
What we do and what we do not
We do personal care and washing, help getting up and going to bed, meals and shopping, reminders for medication that has been prescribed in writing, company, and support in the weeks after a hospital discharge.
We do not do nursing tasks or wound care: that is a nurse’s job, and when it is what you need we say so and point you in the right direction rather than taking the work and improvising. We do not handle Spanish dependency benefit applications either.
How we start
With a visit to the house, in English or in Spanish, at no cost and with no commitment. From that visit comes a written proposal of hours and a price. There is no minimum term.
Questions we get in Rota
Does the carer speak English?
Part of our Rota team works in English for day-to-day care, and that is what matters here: understanding what hurts, explaining what is about to happen before doing it, and going along to the health centre to translate. We are not sworn interpreters, so anything official still needs a qualified translator.
I live abroad. How do I know how my mother is doing?
We agree the reporting from day one: how often you hear from us, through which channel, and what we always tell you whether you ask or not. Any fall, however minor, any change, any medical appointment. Without that agreement, the family living abroad always finds out weeks late.
Can you go with her to hospital appointments?
Yes, within the contracted hours, including appointments outside the municipality. Tell us at the start if they are frequent: a consultation in Puerto Real takes half a morning once you count the drive, and that has to be built into the hours rather than discovered on the day.
Is the carer properly employed?
Yes, with a contract and registered with the Spanish social security system, and we hand you the proof without being asked. There is a lot of informal work in this area and it is worth knowing what you take on: if someone working in your home is injured and was not registered, liability lands on the homeowner.
Get in touch
The quickest way is to call. If you would rather write, the enquiry form is on the Spanish version of this page and we answer in English.