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★★★★★4.6/5 · 109 Trustpilot reviews of our estate guide

Choose between home care and a care home without getting it wrong — understood in a weekend, or your money back.

The Handover Plan is the method that helps you understand what your parent really needs, compare the options and secure the decision — staying at home, or a care home. The professionals stay essential: The Handover Plan is what you take to them, so the meeting is worth having.

  • Built on the 48-7-12 Framework: the first 48 hours · the first 7 days · the next 12 weeks
  • Printable, fill-in sheets you complete with a pen — plain English, no jargon
  • Built with someone who spent twenty years inside England's care homes
  • Emailed within minutes · digital only, nothing is posted
  • One-off payment, no subscription · 30-day money-back guarantee
→ Get The Handover Plan
🔒 Secure payment📧 Emailed within minutes📍 Written for England♻️ 30-day money back
A customer in her kitchen in England presenting her completed Handover Plan folder
★★★★★More than 10,000 families have used a guide from the Help Senior range
With the contribution of:
The real problem

The mistake most English families make? Deciding in a rush, after a fall or a hospital stay.

The doctors and the discharge team are essential. But between the hospital ward and the decision — home care or care home — there is a gap nobody prepares you for. Here is what families live through in that gap, unprepared.

Tuesday · 9:12 am

“She's medically fit for discharge”

The hospital calls: your mother is coming out. She can't live alone any more. You feel you have two days to find a care home place or organise everything at home. Nobody tells you where to start — or that no law actually sets that deadline.

Thursday · 6:45 pm

The quote you daren't look at

A care home sends its fees. Published ranges for a self-funder sit broadly between £950 and £1,400 a week for residential care, and higher for nursing care — and no official national figure exists, so the only number that means anything is the one on your quote. Nobody knows what the council pays, what Attendance Allowance is, or what you'll really be left to fund. The quote sits on the kitchen table. Three weeks later, it's still there.

Sunday · 2:30 pm

The argument around the table

Your daughter wants her to stay at home. Your son thinks a care home is safer. Nobody actually knows what she can still manage, and nobody has been assessed. Voices rise. Someone leaves the room. Sunday lunch ends there.

None of these scenes comes from a lack of love.
All of them come from the fact that nobody understood the situation in advance.
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Our readers

What they say about our guides

Publicly, on Trustpilot, where we cannot edit them.

4.6★★★★★109 reviews of My Estate Kit on Trustpilot
5 star81%
4 star11%
3 star5%
2 star0%
1 star3%

My Estate Kit is our guide to sorting out an estate after a death, published by the same company. The Handover Plan is the newest guide in the range and is too new to have a score of its own — when it has one, we will show it here instead. Figures as at 23 August 2026. Check them yourself on Trustpilot.

The Handover Plan — printed cover, 2026 edition
3 to 4 hours. One weekend. Real peace of mind.

Simple to fill in.
Impossible to improvise.

Most families put this subject off because it feels heavy, guilt-ridden or complicated.

The Handover Plan makes it simple.

Guided questions. Clear sections. No intimidating blank page.

You move step by step, filling in only what applies to your parent's situation.

A few hours today can save your family weeks of confusion, phone calls and decisions made under pressure later.

Choose your pack

Your family knows
what to decide.
Everyone else improvises.

Your parent's real needs can be misjudged. Quotes can be scattered. The right questions can stay stuck in your head.

The Handover Plan lets you gather everything into one clear folder you can print and keep to hand.

With the assessment requests. The funding worksheets. Or with someone you trust.

Keep it with your parent's documents. Decide with a clear head.

A daughter finds the information easily thanks to The Handover Plan
What nobody tells you

The real problem starts before the care home.

The needs assessment, the means test, the care plan: all of it matters. But between the hospital ward and the decision — home or care home — there is a blind spot nobody talks about.

“
“Fourteen weeks before an assessment.” One family, describing what they were told when a parent came out of hospital. Leave today, help later. We quote it because it is what the gap feels like from inside — not as a national figure: there is no statutory time limit on a needs assessment in England, waiting times vary enormously between councils, and yours may be nothing like this.

If nothing is understood in advance, you sign the first care home with a free bed, discover the real cost too late, and miss support your parent may well have been entitled to — starting with the needs assessment, which is free to everyone whatever their savings, but only if somebody asks for it.

The lesson: finding a bed is not the same as protecting a parent. What makes the difference is understanding and comparing before you sign.

→ Choose your pack
The Handover Plan — binder open on the needs checklist and the how-to guide
The method

The 48-7-12 Framework

“A care decision is not made in a corridor. It is understood, compared and secured.”

The Handover Plan turns what's spinning in your head into one clear folder, sitting on the table, ready to open.

Simple method. Clear decisions. Peace of mind.

The 48-7-12 Framework

Understand everything before you decide, in 3 simple steps

The 48-7-12 Framework is our own way of organising the process — not a set of legal deadlines. There is no statutory time limit on a needs assessment in England, and no law gives a family 48 hours to choose a care home. These are simply the three windows in which the decisions land, and the order in which it helps to take them.

1
Window 1 · 48 hours

CLARIFY the first 48 hours

Use the first 48 hours to understand what is being proposed — not to make the final decision. What “medically fit for discharge” really means, the exact words to use with the discharge team, who is coordinating the process, and our plain-English “2-in-10” explainer — our own shorthand for one part of the national eligibility framework, so you can follow what an assessment actually looks at.

⚠ Risk if unpreparedRushed into a “48-hour” deadline no law sets · first free bed signed
2
Window 2 · 7 days

ASSESS in the first week

The needs assessment — free to everyone, whatever the savings — your own carer's assessment, the NHS checklist where health needs are in play, and the ready-to-send letters so every request is in writing.

⚠ Risk if unpreparedAssessments never requested · support lost · everything verbal, nothing provable
3
Window 3 · 12 weeks

PROTECT the home & the money

The 12-week property disregard — in some qualifying circumstances the value of a former home may be temporarily left out of the financial assessment — the top-up fees to check before you pay them, Attendance Allowance (not normally means-tested, but subject to eligibility), deferred payment agreements, and the decisions that are hardest to reverse.

⚠ Risk if unpreparedHouse sold in a panic · top-ups paid for nothing · benefits never claimed
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A Handover Plan customer, smiling at home
★★★★★Customer story
Real life · our customers

Our customers speak for us.

“What a relief. For the first time in weeks, I slept properly. I understood what Mum actually needs, compared the options, and we decided calmly — without tearing each other apart. It's exactly what I needed.”

Christine, 62 · Yorkshire · The Complete Pack

1 Sunday
to understand the essentials
7 points
on our care home comparison grid
3 children
agreed on the decision
Margaret W., twenty years in England's care homes
★★★★★

Twenty years working inside care homes in England. I've seen so many families arrive in a panic, understanding nothing: a place signed in a rush, the real cost discovered too late, the assessment never requested, the paperwork never read. The Handover Plan does, in a few pages and checklists, what I wished I could have explained to every family for twenty years.

Margaret W., 61twenty years in England's care homes Contributor to The Handover Plan
Before · After

When the day comes, two possible outcomes

The same situation, the same family. Two radically different results, depending on whether you understood the situation — or not.

Without the Plan

  • You improvise in a panic for weeks
  • The first care home with a free bed gets signed, uncompared
  • Your parent's real needs are never properly assessed
  • Family arguments, because nobody sees the same picture
  • Support missed — the assessments never even requested
  • The real cost discovered too late — commonly £950–£1,400 a week, and more for nursing care
  • Paperwork signed without reading the small print
  • The house put up for sale before anyone asked what the options were

With The Handover Plan

  • You open the folder and know what to decide, step by step
  • Our 7-point grid compares the options side by side
  • You arrive at the assessment with a real example for each of the ten outcomes
  • Everyone sees the same information — no friction
  • The assessments and benefits worth checking, requested in writing
  • The real cost anticipated and budgeted calmly
  • Paperwork read, sensitive clauses spotted
  • The property questions asked at the right time, of the right people
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They trust us

More than 10,000 families have used a guide from the Help Senior range

The Handover Plan is the newest guide in that range, written specifically for families in England. The figure above covers our full range of family-organisation guides, not this guide alone.

10,000+
families across the Help Senior range
4.6/5
on Trustpilot, 109 reviews
England
written for the Care Act 2014
30 days
money-back guarantee
4.6
★★★★★109 reviews of My Estate Kit on Trustpilot — 23 August 2026

We publish one figure, and it is the one you can check yourself: the score our estate guide holds on its public Trustpilot profile, where we cannot edit or remove anything. Eleven per cent of those reviews are four stars and three per cent are one star — we show those too. The Handover Plan is the newest guide in the range and has no score of its own yet; the day it does, it goes here instead.

Bought The Handover Plan? Tell other families what you made of it — we read every one.

Reviews of our guides

4.6/5 from 109 reviews of My Estate Kit on Trustpilot — the good and the bad

Kim Peacock
10 August 2026
★★★★★

An excellent way to organise a wealth of information

I have been impressed by the rapid receipt by email, ease of printing and above all, the logical structure of the guide and the other documents I have looked through. The guide is very comprehensive.

Beccy Fawcett
1 August 2026
★★★★★

Straightforward and clear

Straightforward and clear step by step instructions, with organisation printable or can be filled in online, according to your preference. Encourages you to put things in order now.

Pam Cain
2 August 2026
★★★★★

I emailed and Rafael responded really quickly

The kit was easy to download but I misread something and couldn't find a document. I emailed and Rafael responded really quickly. Very friendly company, providing a much needed tool.

Mrs Irene Boyd
30 July 2026
★★★★★

It helped me get my paperwork organised

It helped me to get all my paperwork organized.

Angela Lambert
8 August 2026
★★★★★

Satisfied — but I couldn't print the covers

I am satisfied with the kit I received but am disappointed as it doesn't seem possible to print out any of the nice covers shown in the photographs. Am I missing something?

Alan
10 August 2026
★★★★★

A good idea, but too complicated

A good idea and effective checklist. The overall “pack” is too complicated and could be streamlined.

Complete your order below
Summer Flash Offer · −22% on The Complete Pack · final daysEnds in23 h 47 min
CHOOSE YOUR PACK

Choose the level of support that fits your situation.

The Essential Pack gets you through the first 48 hours. The Complete Pack is the whole plan — the 48 hours, the first week, and the money side: the house, the fees and the funding.

Secure paymentEmailed within minutesPrintable documents30-day guarantee
Essential

The Essential Pack

Understand the situation and know what to do for your parent

Preview — The Essential Pack, The Handover Plan

£22

One-off payment · no subscription

  • Window 1 of the 48-7-12 Framework — Clarify, the first 48 hours
  • The Corridor Page — what to say at the hospital, today
  • The Decision Grid: staying at home, extra help at home, a residential home or a nursing home — compared side by side
  • The Options Map: every solution, compared simply
  • The plain-English guide to needs, funding and costs
  • The 7 mistakes to avoid in the first days
  • 30-day guarantee
Most popular

The Complete Pack

The whole plan: the 48 hours, the first week, and the weeks that protect the home

Preview — The Complete Pack, The Handover Plan

£69−22%

£54

One-off payment · no subscription

Summer Flash Offer — save £15

  • Everything in The Essential Pack — plus Windows 2 and 3: Assess, then Protect
  • The written requests: needs assessment + your own carer's assessment
  • The ready-to-send letters — including the four for pushing back: an unsafe discharge, a wrong financial assessment, a deferred payment, a refused CHC decision
  • The list of documents to gather
  • The Sibling Pack — share the roles without a fight
  • The words for a parent who refuses help
  • What self-funders typically pay — a gap of around 41% on comparable places (CMA, 2017)
  • How to check a top-up fee you may not owe
  • The house: the 12 protected weeks, deferred payments, what to avoid
  • Giving assets away: what can backfire, and on whom
  • 30-day guarantee

If in doubt, take The Complete Pack: 48-7-12 only works taken whole, and the money window is the one families discover too late. The Essential Pack is there if the next 48 hours are all you can think about today.

Every order is covered by our 30-day guarantee

Download the Plan, read the documents, print the checklists and start filling them in at your own pace.

If you feel the content hasn't helped you see clearly, simply email raphael@helpsenior.co.uk within 30 days.

No justification, no form, no questions back. We issue the refund within 48–72 business hours of your email, to the payment method you used — your bank or payment provider may take a little longer to show it in your account.

This guarantee sits alongside your statutory rights, including the 14-day right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which we do not disapply for downloaded content.

📧 Emailed within minutes · Digital only, nothing is posted · Written for families in England
Frequently asked questions

Everything families ask us

If you can't find your answer, email us at raphael@helpsenior.co.uk.

Does the Plan replace a doctor or a social worker?
No, never. The doctors, the discharge team, the social workers and your local authority remain essential for assessing needs, arranging support and coordinating any move. The Plan is there so that you understand what your parent really needs, compare the options and secure the decision — home care or care home.
When should we start?
At the first signs of lost independence, it's comfortable. After a first fall, it's urgent. After a hospital stay, it's essential. But it's never too early — and never too late. Many families also use it once a care home move is already decided, to prepare it properly and check the money side.
How is it delivered, and how quickly?
It is entirely digital. Your order confirmation arrives straight away, and your documents follow by email within a few minutes — a single page holding every document in your pack, which you can read on screen, fill in on screen, print, or download as an A4 PDF. Nothing is posted to your home, there is no login and nothing expires. Keep that email: the link is your way back in, and anyone you forward it to can open it too, so treat it as you would the folder itself. If the email has not arrived, check your spam or junk folder first — new senders often land there — then email raphael@helpsenior.co.uk (Monday–Saturday, 8am–8pm UK time) with the name you ordered under and we will send it across by hand.
What happens to what I write on the sheets?
Nothing leaves your hands. The fill-in sheets work in your own browser: anything you type is saved on your own device so you can come back to it. What you write about your parent — their health, their money, their daily life — is never sent to us and is never stored on our servers. The other side of that: because it lives in your browser and nowhere else, clearing your browsing data, or opening the page on a different device, means starting the sheets again. If you have spent an evening filling them in, use the "Save as PDF" button to keep a copy with your answers, or print the blank A4 PDF and work on paper. The only details we hold are the ones you give us to buy and be sent the Plan.
Do I need to be good with computers?
No. You get one link, you click it, and everything is on that page. Print what you want and work on paper at your own pace — every document has a Download PDF (A4) button for exactly that. If you need help downloading or printing, our support can guide you by email at raphael@helpsenior.co.uk.
How long does it take to fill in?
3 to 4 hours spread over a quiet weekend. No need to finish in one go: a folder 70% complete is worth infinitely more than a perfect folder never started.
Is there a subscription or renewal?
No. It's a one-off payment. You will never be charged again. No hidden fees, no automatic renewal.
Does this apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
No — and we'd rather tell you than pretend. The Plan is written for England (the Care Act 2014). Scotland has free personal care and different thresholds; Wales and Northern Ireland have their own rules.
Who am I buying from?
The Handover Plan is published and sold by HELP SENIOR LTD, a private company limited by shares registered in England and Wales (Company Number 17398418), registered office at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom. Our Terms of Sale, Privacy Policy and Legal Notice are in English and set out your rights in full.
How do I get a refund if I'm not satisfied?
A simple email to raphael@helpsenior.co.uk within 30 days of purchase. No justification, no form, no questions back — we issue the refund within 48–72 business hours of your email, to the payment method you used; your bank or payment provider may take a little longer to display it. Separately, you also have a statutory 14-day right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which we do not disapply for downloaded content: that right is yours to exercise, it needs no approval from us.
Time to decide

Caring well for a parent isn't a bed found in a hurry. It's a decision understood.

The day your parent can no longer live alone, you won't have to guess. You'll open the folder, and you'll know. A few hours this week can save your family months of chaos.

→ Get The Handover Plan

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The Handover Plan — from £22
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