24-hour home care in Ontario
If this is a medical emergency
Call 911 immediately. Do not wait for a call back from us.
For urgent care needs that are not an emergency, call us on 1-888-507-6236 — a person will pick up, and we can usually move faster than a form allows.
Round-the-clock care at home, so someone is never alone. Families usually reach this point after a fall, a hospital discharge, or a dementia diagnosis that has moved past what visits can cover — and often while deciding whether long-term care is the alternative.
Call toll-free 1-888-507-6236, or book a free consultation.
Two ways to cover 24 hours, and they are not the same product
This is the distinction that decides both the cost and the quality of the care. Ask any provider which one they are quoting you, because the difference is substantial.
Two or three caregivers cover the day in shifts, each fully awake and working the whole time. Right when someone needs hands-on help around the clock, has a two-person transfer, or is medically unstable. The most care, and the highest cost.
One caregiver lives in the home for a stretch of days, working through the day and sleeping at night, getting up if needed. Right when the need is presence and supervision rather than continuous hands-on care. Requires a private room.
When families move to 24-hour care
Often the second one. The first is bad luck; the second usually means being alone is no longer safe.
Discharge is arranged faster than families can prepare. Round-the-clock cover for the first weeks is frequently what prevents readmission. Post-hospital care →
When leaving the house alone, the stove, or the front door have become real risks rather than worries. Dementia care →
When the wish is to stay at home and the family cannot hold every hour alone. Palliative care →
Ontario wait lists are long. 24-hour care at home is what many families use to bridge them. Wait times →
Sometimes the person who needs relieving is the daughter, not the parent. That is a legitimate reason and not a failure.
How it is set up
What has changed, how urgent, and whether this is a few weeks or the long term. Fifteen minutes, no forms.
A regulated health professional visits — at home, or in hospital before discharge. Transfers, night needs, the layout of the house, and what the family can realistically carry. Free.
Shift care or live-in, who is on which hours, what each caregiver does, and what it costs — talked through with you before anything is booked.
Round-the-clock care needs more than one person, but it should not need twenty. We build the smallest team that covers the hours and keep it stable.
Care at this level is reviewed, not set and forgotten. Needs change, and the plan changes with them — often downwards once someone recovers.
What it costs, honestly
24-hour care is the most expensive way to receive care at home, and any provider quoting a single hourly rate without asking about nights is not quoting the same thing twice. Three things move the number:
Shift care bills every hour to an awake caregiver. Live-in is structured differently. The gap between them is large.
Frequent hands-on care at night rules out live-in and pushes you to shifts, whatever the daytime need looks like.
Most 24-hour care is personal support. Where there is complex nursing, an RN or RPN is involved and the rate reflects it.
Questions families ask
How many caregivers does 24-hour care involve?
Shift care usually means two or three across a day, plus cover for days off. Live-in means one at a time, rotating on a schedule. Either way we build the smallest stable team that covers the hours rather than filling shifts with whoever is free.
Can we start with less and increase it?
Yes, and most families should. Start with the hours that are genuinely unsafe and add rather than beginning at 24 and working down. It is cheaper, and it tells you what is actually needed.
Does live-in care need a spare room?
Yes. A private room and access to a washroom, and somewhere to prepare food. Without a room, shift care is the only option.
Is 24-hour care cheaper than a nursing home?
Sometimes, sometimes not, and it depends heavily on which kind you need and what the alternative actually costs including accommodation. We will give you a real figure for our side so you can compare properly. We will not tell you it is always cheaper, because that is not true.
What if we only need the nights covered?
Then you do not need this. Overnight care covers the night only and costs a fraction of round-the-clock cover.
Can you cover 24 hours starting this week?
Often, depending on the area and the level of care. Round-the-clock cover takes more staff than a single visit, so ask early rather than assuming. We would rather say what we can genuinely reach than promise a roster we cannot fill.
Is publicly funded care an option instead?
Ontario Health atHome provides publicly funded home care, though not usually at 24-hour intensity. It is worth calling them, and many families combine the two. How the two work together →
Talk to someone about round-the-clock care
Call toll-free 1-888-507-6236 — answered any time, day or night.
Book a free consultation · Overnight care only · All home care services
24-hour home care across the Greater Toronto Area
Round-the-clock care at home is available throughout the GTA. Choose your city: Toronto, North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, East York, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Thornhill, Oakville, Burlington, Milton, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, Oshawa, Newmarket, Aurora. If your city is not listed, see all the places we serve or call 1-888-507-6236.