Nationwide Care Services
Arrange care 0121 707 0121

Home / Out-of-hours care

On-call line staffed right now

Ring at 3am on Boxing Day. Someone picks up.

Not an answering service. Not a voicemail. Not a call centre in another county. A care professional from your own branch, with your care plan and the live rota in front of them, and the authority to send a carer tonight.

Call 0121 707 0121 now Request an urgent callback
18:00 – 08:00Weeknights

Branch on-call manager, contactable throughout the night.

All weekendSat & Sun

Full coordination cover — new packages can start on a Saturday.

365 daysIncluding Christmas

Bank holiday rotas are planned months ahead, not scrambled the week before.

0 answerphonesAcross all branches

We do not outsource the out-of-hours line to a message-taking service.

The problem, stated plainly

Care emergencies do not happen between nine and five.

The fall is on a Saturday night. The hospital rings about discharge at ten past four on a Friday. The regular carer is ill and the visit is at seven tomorrow morning. This is the part of home care that goes wrong most often — and it is the part we have deliberately built the business around.

What usually happens

The 5pm handover to an answering service

Most domiciliary providers divert the phone to a third-party message service outside office hours. The person answering has no access to your care plan and no authority to do anything about it.

  • A message is logged and passed on the next working day
  • No visibility of the rota, so no idea who was due to visit
  • No ability to arrange cover for a missed morning call
  • Friday afternoon hospital referrals are pushed to Monday
  • Christmas and New Year cover reduced or suspended
What happens when you ring us

A care professional, with the rota in front of them

Each branch runs its own staffed on-call rota. The person answering is one of our coordinators or managers, sees the same systems the day team uses, and can act on the call immediately.

  • Answered by our own care staff, employed by the branch
  • Live access to rotas, care plans and eMAR records
  • Authority to dispatch a carer or a manager the same night
  • Emergency and Friday-discharge packages started at short notice
  • Full cover on every bank holiday, including Christmas Day

Three real shapes of call

What "out of hours" actually means in practice.

These are the three calls our on-call teams take most often. None of them can wait until Monday, and all of them are routine to us.

16:40Friday

"The ward wants to discharge tomorrow"

A hospital discharge team rings just as most offices are closing, with a package needed for Saturday morning and no provider in place.

→ Assessed by phone that evening, carer allocated overnight, first visit Saturday.
23:15Saturday

"Mum has had a fall and I am two hours away"

A family member hundreds of miles away, an ambulance that has been and gone, and nobody to help her back to bed safely.

→ On-call manager attends or dispatches a carer, family updated the same night.
06:20Bank holiday Monday

"I need an extra call this morning"

Plans change — a bank holiday morning is no exception. An extra visit at short notice is exactly what an on-call team with the live rota in front of it is for.

→ Assessed on the phone, cover arranged from the live rota within the hour.

How it is staffed

Rostered, paid and accountable.

On-call is a rostered, paid duty at every branch, not an informal arrangement where a manager hopes their phone stays quiet. Every out-of-hours call is logged in the same system as a daytime call, reviewed the next morning at handover, and audited as part of our quality reporting.

  1. One number, day or night

    Your branch number diverts to the on-call phone at 18:00 and back at 08:00. You do not have to remember a second number or dig out a letter.

  2. A coordinator or manager answers

    Rostered in advance, paid an on-call allowance, and holding the same system access as the day team.

  3. A decision, not a message

    Cover arranged, a carer dispatched, or clinical escalation to the out-of-hours GP or district nursing team — with a call back to you confirming what has been done.

  4. Formal handover at 08:00

    Everything from overnight is handed to the day team in writing, so you never have to explain it twice.

If this is a medical emergency, ring 999 first. Our on-call team works alongside the emergency services, out-of-hours GPs and district nurses — we are not a substitute for them, and we will tell you plainly when 999 or 111 is the right call.

Common questions

About our out-of-hours service

Is it really a person, or an answering service?

A person, employed by us, with access to your care plan and the live rota. We do not use an external answering service at any branch — and you are welcome to test that before you commit to anything. Ring the number at nine o'clock on a Sunday evening and see who answers.

Can care actually start out of hours, or only be arranged?

It can genuinely start. Subject to capacity at your branch, we can begin emergency packages the same day, including evenings and weekends. Friday afternoon hospital discharges are a normal part of our week rather than an exception we apologise for.

Is there an extra charge for calling out of hours?

No. The on-call line is part of the service and there is no charge for using it, whether you are an existing client or ringing us for the first time. Care actually delivered on a bank holiday is charged at the published bank holiday rate, which you will always see in writing before it is charged.

What happens at Christmas and New Year?

The same as every other day of the year. Bank holiday rotas are planned months in advance, the on-call line is staffed throughout, and we do not reduce or suspend visits over the festive period.

What if I need a district nurse or a GP rather than a carer?

The on-call team will escalate directly to the out-of-hours GP service or the district nursing team on your behalf, and stay involved until it is resolved. Where it is a medical emergency we will tell you to ring 999 immediately — clearly and without hedging.

Do you cover missed visits from another provider?

Where we have capacity, yes. A number of our packages started as an emergency call from a family whose existing provider had not turned up. Ring us and we will tell you straight away whether we can help tonight.

The number works right now.

Whatever the time is where you are reading this, someone is on the end of it.

Call 0121 707 0121 Request a callback instead