# Care Agency



## hodges7889 (Sep 2, 2015)

Myself and my Partner are moving to spain in december. (we have enough money to last 12 months out there and have a job secured back here in the UK should anything go wrong, we are pretty sensible ) 

We are hoping to move out and start a domiciliary care company in benidorm (for the british retired people & people who are on holiday but still need care) as well as a care agency supplying staff to care homes that need people, pretty much the same kind of way it works out here in the UK.

We have both worked in care for a while now (myself 5 years with experience of dementia, learning disabilities, mental health and other things). I have looked EVERYWHERE for the answers, including the CQC in the UK. My question is is, what qualifications will we need to start this? And is there someone i would need to register with in Spain as you do here with the CQC. 

Desperate to find the answer! because if so, we will be having a current colleague move out with us to help start the business!

Any help would be grateful!! thank you xx


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

I dont think Spain has the equivalent of the CQC. To start up a care agency, the first thing would be to get your qualifications ratified/converted to Spanish. In the past its been possibly to start this sort of thing without any real qualifications, but its not so easy now. You would also need to be at bilingual standard with your Spanish. The other thing is that Spanish people tend to look after their own and care for British expats tends to be funded privately. 

Its also worth knowing that Alot of Spanish clinical staff have been drafted over to the UK to work for the NHS as there is a shortage of jobs in Spain

Jo xxx


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## Calas felices (Nov 29, 2007)

You may wonder why there are very few successfull care agencies in Spain. Just some thoughts: The distances the carers have to travel are prohibitive in terms of the distance they have to travel; very few people are able to afford the fees that are necessary to make a profit; carers have to pay a minimum of €250 per month in social security fees no matter how many hours they do (there are some discounts but they don't last long; there is an army of neighbours, friends and voluntary organisations that do this already; to work with Spanish patients (if any could afford it) would require a high level of Spanish. That should do for a start. By the way there is no organisation in Spain that controls or regulates the activities of charities.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

deleted -duplication


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The responsibility for the regulation and inspection of care services in the home in Spain, under the Ley de Dependencia, rests with the autonomous regions.

Agencia de Servicios Sociales y Dependencia de Andalucía

Therefore, I suggest the OP needs to contact the Generalitat Valenciana as a first step to find out what their requirements are. If you don't speak Spanish or Valenciano then you would probably need to employ someone to do this for you, possibly a gestor or a Spanish "virtual assistant".

A Google search would bring you up details of a number of such care agencies in the Valencia region, by the way, so the idea that this type of care is mainly the province of family members is something of an outdated concept these days. A number of my elderly neighbours here in Andalucia have uniformed carers coming to assist them at home who do all the cleaning, ironing, prepare meals if necessary, escort them out for walks or to do the shopping if they are mobile enough, etc.


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