Choosing someone to care for you or a family member at home is a significant decision. Whether you need short-term support following surgery, ongoing elderly care, complex nursing support or help caring for a loved one, it is important to know who you are allowing into your home and who is responsible for their care.
Dubai has many companies offering home care and nursing services, but services, qualifications and levels of clinical oversight can vary. Here is what to check and how to check it.
1. Check that the provider is appropriately licensed
Home healthcare is a regulated healthcare service in Dubai. Any company providing clinical care in your home needs a facility licence from the Dubai Health Authority, and the nurses and therapists it sends need individual professional licences.
You can check both yourself, free, before you speak to anyone. DHA publishes its licence register through the Sheryan portal, where you can search a facility by name and a professional by name or licence number. If a provider is licensed, it will tell you its licence number without hesitating. If asking the question produces a change of subject, that is your answer.
Two things worth knowing:
- A trade licence is not a health licence. A company can be legally registered in Dubai and still not be licensed to provide nursing care.
- The individual matters as much as the company. A licensed facility can still send someone whose own professional licence does not cover what you have been told they will do.
At Belgravia: we are a DHA-licensed home healthcare provider, facility licence 2508980.
2. Ask how your care needs will be assessed
Good home healthcare shouldn’t simply begin with assigning the next available member of staff. The provider should first understand what support is actually required.
What a proper assessment covers. Depending on the circumstances, it should look at current medical conditions and diagnoses, mobility and falls risk, medication and who administers it, personal care requirements, nutrition and feeding, cognitive or behavioural needs, existing medical equipment in the home, family circumstances and preferences, and the level of clinical supervision required.
What to ask: Who carries out the assessment, and are they clinically qualified? Does it happen in the home or over the phone? Is there a written care plan at the end of it, and do we get a copy? How often is it reviewed?
At Belgravia: the assessment is carried out by our Head Nurse or a senior nurse, at home or in hospital, and it is complimentary. It ends in a written care plan, the family gets a copy, and the plan is reviewed monthly or sooner if needs change.
A provider that quotes an hourly rate before anyone has assessed the person receiving care is quoting for a shift, not planning care.
3. Ask how care providers are matched to the person receiving care
Qualifications are important, but so is finding someone suitable for the individual receiving care. Different patients may require experience in areas such as elderly care, postoperative recovery, neurological conditions, complex nursing, paediatric care or autism support.
Continuity matters too, and it is the thing families most often discover too late. Ask directly:
- Will the same person attend each visit, or is it whoever is available?
- Can we meet or speak to them before care starts?
- If the match is wrong, what is the process for changing it, and does it cost anything?
- What are their languages, and does that work for the person receiving care?
At Belgravia: every client has a primary care provider and a reliever. Everyone we send is matched to the client’s needs. If the match still isn’t right, we change it at no charge.
Language and cultural fit are not a nicety in Dubai. For an older relative or a child, being cared for by someone they cannot easily talk to changes the quality of the care itself.
Not sure what level of support you need?
Call the Belgravia team on +971 55 129 8825 and we will talk through the options before anything is arranged.
4. Find out who provides clinical oversight
Ask what happens after care begins. Who supervises the healthcare professional? Who reviews the care plan? Who should the family contact if something changes?
A home healthcare provider should have clear clinical governance and escalation procedures, and should be able to describe them in plain language:
- Who supervises — a named clinical lead or nurse manager, not “the office”.
- How often the care plan is reviewed, and what triggers an earlier review.
- What happens out of hours — who you can reach, when, and what to do in an emergency.
- When they escalate to your treating doctor or to emergency services, and who tells the family.
At Belgravia: our Head Nurse supervises every care provider we send. The Head Nurse and our Client Care team are both available from 9am to 9pm. Questions sent outside those hours are answered as early as possible the next day.
If nobody can answer who is clinically responsible for this person, the honest answer is nobody.
5. Ask what happens if your regular healthcare professional is unavailable
Illness and emergencies happen. If a family depends on regular home care — particularly overnight care, or care that lets a family member go to work — the provider should have arrangements for managing unexpected absence and maintaining continuity wherever possible.
Ask what the cover arrangement actually is: is there a named second care provider who already knows the case, how much notice do you get, and does the replacement receive the care plan before they arrive? A provider with depth in the team can answer this. A provider relying on one person per client cannot.
At Belgravia: we explain the cover arrangement before you book. The reliever is introduced before their first visit and takes a handover from the primary care provider or shadows them first.
6. Look at how the company communicates
Home healthcare often involves several people: the patient, family members, nurses, doctors, therapists and sometimes hospitals. Families should know who their main contact is, how to raise a concern, how changes are communicated, how care is documented and what happens in an emergency.
Worth establishing before care starts:
- One named contact for the family, and how to reach them outside office hours.
- How care is documented — is there a visit record, and can the family see it?
- How a concern is raised, and what the provider does with it.
- How family abroad are kept updated, if that applies. Many families in Dubai are arranging care with relatives in another time zone.
At Belgravia: each family has one point of contact. The family can also see the visit notes.
7. Look beyond the cheapest hourly rate
Price is understandably important, particularly when care is required for many hours. However, the appropriate level of care, staff qualifications, supervision, continuity, responsiveness and reliability all affect the service being provided.
When comparing quotes, check you are comparing the same thing:
- Is the assessment included, or charged separately?
- Is the rate for a licensed nurse or another care provider? Ask what qualifications the person you are sent actually holds, because that matters clinically.
- Are nights, weekends and public holidays at the same rate?
- What is the minimum booking, and the notice period for cancelling or changing?
- Is clinical supervision included in the rate, or is it an extra?
At Belgravia: the assessment is complimentary.
A materially cheaper quote usually means one of these is missing. Find out which.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly can home nursing start in Dubai? We aim to start within 24 hours. If someone is coming home from hospital, contact us a few days before discharge so our team can take a full handover from the hospital’s doctors, nurses and therapists.
Is home nursing covered by insurance in the UAE? It depends entirely on your policy. Some plans cover home nursing after a hospital admission, often with pre-approval and a doctor’s referral. Ask your insurer whether home healthcare is a covered benefit and what documentation they need. We can supply the documents insurers usually ask for.
Can we change our care provider if it is not the right fit? Yes. Tell us, and we will change them at no charge.
Home healthcare with Belgravia Healthcare
At Belgravia Healthcare, our aim is to make receiving healthcare at home feel safe, organised and personal. We are a DHA-licensed home healthcare provider working with individuals and families across Dubai, and we assess before we recommend — we would rather understand the situation than sell you an hourly rate.
Call the Belgravia team on +971 55 129 8825 or arrange an assessment to discuss the most appropriate support for your family.
Clinically reviewed by Reem Saad, Medical Director, 2 October 2026.
Related: Home Nursing · About Belgravia · Contact us