What is home help?
Home help is practical, non-medical assistance with the everyday tasks that keep a household running. It covers things like cleaning, tidying, laundry, gardening, shopping, pet care and small errands — the kind of jobs that are easy for a neighbour to lend a hand with, but tricky when time, mobility or energy is short.
Home help vs. home care
The two terms sound similar but mean different things in the UK:
- Home care (sometimes called domiciliary care) is regulated support delivered by trained care workers. It includes personal care such as help with washing, dressing, medication and mobility, and is usually arranged via a Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered provider.
- Home help is the everyday, non-clinical stuff: hoovering, weeding the front garden, walking the dog, picking up a prescription, changing a light bulb, sorting a printer that won't connect. No clinical training is needed — just a friendly, reliable local person.
Typical home help tasks
- Cleaning, tidying and laundry
- Gardening and lawn care
- Shopping, prescription pick-ups and errands
- Pet sitting and dog walking
- Basic tech help — setting up a phone, tablet or smart TV
- Light tutoring and reading companionship
- Small household jobs that don't require a qualified tradesperson
What home help does not cover
To keep things safe for everyone, Lend a Hand doesn't allow jobs that need a regulated professional — personal or medical care, childcare, skilled trades (gas, electrics, structural work) or anything involving children. If you're not sure, our how it works page explains the boundaries.
How Lend a Hand fits in
Lend a Hand is a UK community marketplace for exactly this kind of local, everyday help. Posting a job is free. Helpers subscribe for job-offer tokens, and when a job is agreed, the poster pays the helper directly — the platform never touches your money. It's built around three simple ideas: community, trust and simplicity.