Home Care in
Sri Lanka
for London Families.
Home care in Sri Lanka for London families begins where the NHS ends. Nobody refers you, nobody assesses you, and there is no waiting list to join. You ring us directly, we assess your parents in Colombo, and a vetted carer starts. London families are often surprised how few steps there are.
Ring on the Northern line
She will be having lunch
5½ hrs
Colombo ahead
1,000+
Carer profiles
Vetted and reference-checked
14 Days
Placement guarantee
Or we escalate immediately
96%
First-match success
50+ matching factors
PHSRC
Registered nurses
For clinical home nursing
There Is No GP Referral for This.
A specifically British problem: forty years of the NHS teaches you to wait for somebody to tell you what happens next.
What you are used to in the UK
- A GP decides whether a referral is warranted
- The council carries out a needs assessment
- Someone determines eligibility and funding
- You join a waiting list and are contacted in turn
- A care package is proposed to you
- The system tells you when it is your turn
How it actually works in Sri Lanka
- You contact a provider directly, with no gatekeeper
- The assessment is arranged by us, free, within days
- There is no eligibility test because it is privately paid
- No waiting list exists to join
- You choose the level of care rather than being allocated one
- Nothing starts until you say so
We raise this because it genuinely delays London families. People ring having assumed there must be a process they have failed to start, or a form somewhere they have not filled in. There is not.
The absence of a gatekeeper cuts both ways, and it is worth being honest about that. Nobody independently assesses whether your parents need help, which means the judgement is yours. Our assessment is free and written, precisely so you are deciding from something concrete rather than from a phone call that unsettled you.
It also means nobody is rationing. If your parents need daily support, they can have it next week rather than after a means test. British families frequently find that harder to believe than the price.
Calling Colombo on the Commute.
London is the rare case where the working day and your parents' day genuinely overlap.
Your 8am
1:30pm there
Straight after their lunch
Your 1pm
6:30pm there
Evening, winding down
Your 4pm
9:30pm there
Getting late for a chat
Your 8pm
1:30am there
Avoid entirely
The morning commute is the best window most London families have and almost nobody uses it. Eight o'clock on the Piccadilly or the Overground is half past one in Colombo, which is straight after lunch, when your mother is awake and not yet tired.
Evenings are the trap. You get home at seven, remember you meant to ring, and it is half past midnight there. That call gets you a sleepy reassurance and tells you nothing.
The gap narrows to four and a half hours over British Summer Time, which shifts everything an hour earlier without changing the principle. Carers write the welfare update at the end of the Sri Lankan evening, so it reaches London mid-afternoon and you read it before you leave work rather than after.
Fifty years of settlement
Why London Families Arrange Home Care in Sri Lanka.
London holds the oldest and largest Sri Lankan population of any city we serve, built across several waves and spread from Harrow and Wembley in the north-west to Tooting and Mitcham in the south.
Depth of settlement changes who rings us. Frequently it is not the person who emigrated but their London-born child, arranging care for a grandmother they have visited every few years since they were small.
That generational distance brings its own difficulty. Your Tamil or Sinhala may be conversational at best, you may not know which neighbour to trust, and the relatives who once helped are now elderly themselves. Professional home care removes the need to know any of it.
- Elderly care at home in Sri Lanka arranged entirely from London
- Home nursing care for diabetes, cardiac and post-stroke conditions
- Written welfare updates in English, care delivered in your parents' language
- One coordination team, rather than a rota of increasingly tired relatives
Available to London families
Home Care Services for Your Parents in Sri Lanka.
Seven core services, all arranged remotely. The free assessment decides which your parents actually need.
Night care, half-day blocks, medication management, wound care, doorstep lab testing and hospital bystander support are all arranged on request across the island.
London families ask about medication management more than most, usually because a parent has come back from the UK with a long prescription list and nobody in Colombo is tracking whether any of it is being taken correctly.
Serving Sri Lankan Families Across London.
North-west and south, with almost nothing in between — a pattern set decades ago.
The north-west cluster through Harrow, Wembley and Kingsbury is long-established, as is the southern one around Tooting, Mitcham and Norbury. Families further out in Sutton, Kingston and Hounslow tend to have moved for space rather than community.
London is large enough that this stops functioning as a single community. A family in Harrow and a family in Mitcham are an hour apart on the Tube and may share no acquaintances at all, which is why recommendations travel less reliably here than in Auckland or Melbourne.
Practically that means most London enquiries arrive cold, from a search rather than a referral. We send the written assessment before asking for anything, because that is what a family with no personal recommendation reasonably needs first.
Families outside London — in Leicester, Manchester, Birmingham, Reading, Leeds or Croydon — will find everything on this page applies without alteration. The care happens in Sri Lanka, so your British postcode affects only when we schedule your calls, not what your parents receive.
We say that because the regional communities are substantial in their own right rather than London overspill, and Leicester in particular has a South Asian history that predates most of the capital's Sri Lankan settlement. Nobody outside the M25 should feel they are being served an afterthought.
Straight answers
What London Families Ask Before They Commit.
How much does home care in Sri Lanka cost?
A one-time annual membership covers coordination, payroll and unlimited carer replacements. Daily rates then apply by staff role, from carer through to registered nurse. Rates appear below, and the free assessment always comes first.
My Sinhala is poor. Is that a problem?
Not at all, and it is the most common worry we hear from London-born children. Care is delivered in your parents' language whilst all reporting comes to you in English, so neither of you has to translate anything.
Can I set it up during my next visit?
Yes, and direct flights make that easier from London than from anywhere else we serve. Booking the assessment for a week you are there means your parents meet the carer as your guest rather than as a stranger.
Where the care actually happens
Island-wide coverage in Sri Lanka.
Coordination runs from Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte on the edge of Colombo, and carers are placed anywhere on the island — Kandy, Galle, Negombo, Matara and Jaffna included.
Distance from the capital does not change the daily rate. For London families whose parents returned to a village rather than to Colombo, that flat structure removes an awkward question before it arises.
BetterHands (Pvt) Ltd
200 Narahenpita - Nawala Rd, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte 11222, Sri Lanka
+94 74 21 21 744Transparent pricing
Membership first, then simple daily rates.
One annual membership covers coordination, payroll and unlimited carer replacements. After that you pay a flat daily rate for the level of care your parents need. Fees are charged in Sri Lankan rupees.
BetterHands Annual Membership
LKR 20,000
One-time annual registration fee
- Unlimited caregiver replacements at no additional cost if you are not satisfied
- Payroll management and caregiver administration
- Ongoing coordination and support from the BetterHands team
- Access to all services covered under the BetterHands membership
Step two — daily service rates
Duties below are what each role normally provides — your care plan is tailored during the free assessment.
Caregiver
Daily living support and companionship
LKR 4,500/day
- Friendly conversation and companionship
- Bathing and personal care assistance (if required)
- Medication reminders and general supervision
- Simple meals and refreshments
- Short walks and light activities (if appropriate)
- Day-to-day assistance and emotional support
Daily rates are charged in addition to the one-time annual registration fee of LKR 20,000. The same daily rates apply to day care, night care, live-in, and hospital bystander support — no shift premiums, no travel supplements for any district. A free care assessment is provided before any commitment.
A one-way transfer for the caregiver is arranged at the start of placement.
Families we look after
Trusted with the people who raised us.
“BetterHands transformed my mother's quality of life. The caregivers are professional, compassionate, and treat her with so much dignity. Our whole family is relieved and grateful.”
Chamari W.
Colombo 07
“After my father's heart surgery at Lanka Hospitals, the nursing team from BetterHands provided exceptional post-operative care at home. They were thorough, kind, and always on time.”
Roshan & Dilini P.
Nugegoda
“My grandfather was very lonely after being discharged from hospital. His BetterHands companion has become a true friend — he is happier and more engaged than he's been in years.”
Priya N.
Kandy
Questions from London
Frequently Asked Questions from London Families.
No. There is no GP gateway, no social services assessment and no waiting list. You contact us directly and we arrange a free assessment with your parents. British families often expect a referral pathway because that is how the NHS works, and its absence can feel like a missing step.
Almost any point in your working day. Sri Lanka runs five and a half hours ahead in winter and four and a half in summer, so your 8am commute is early afternoon there and your lunch hour is late afternoon. Evenings from London are the one window to avoid.
Yes. Assessment, matching, approval and payment all run remotely. Your parents meet the carer in person while you review the profile from London. Direct flights make a visit easier than for most countries, but nothing requires one.
No. NHS care and local authority social care apply within the United Kingdom. Once a parent lives in Sri Lanka, care there is private, regardless of how long they previously lived or paid National Insurance in Britain.
Yes. Placements run island-wide, including Kandy, Galle, Negombo, Matara and Jaffna. There is no district travel loading, so a placement outside the capital costs the same daily rate. Availability is confirmed during the assessment.
Placement is guaranteed within 14 days of the completed assessment, and many London families are matched sooner. Hospital discharges are escalated immediately. The assessment itself is usually arranged within days of your first call or message.
BetterHands nurses are registered with Sri Lanka's Private Health Services Regulatory Council. UK benefit and pension entitlements should be confirmed on GOV.UK, as individual circumstances vary.
Check it yourself
Sources and further reading for London families.
Entitlements and health guidance change. These are the official sources — go to them rather than taking our word for it.
Nobody is going to refer you to this.
There is no letter coming, no assessment being scheduled, and no queue you are already in. For a family raised on the NHS that is genuinely disorienting, and it is the single most common reason London families delay.
A vetted carer in the house. Home nursing when the condition calls for it. Written updates in English after every shift, landing while your afternoon is still going. One team accountable, with unlimited replacements if the match is wrong.
The assessment costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Sometimes it tells London families their parents are managing better than the phone calls suggested. Either way, you will have started rather than waited.
Your parents are in Sri Lanka.
You can start this week.
A 15-minute call, at a time that fits your working day. We will tell you honestly what your parents need — even if that turns out to be less than you expected.
1,000+
Caregiver profiles
96%
First-match success
Trained
Caregiver training
14
Days to placement