Guide for Personal Assistants
An essential guide for people considering the role of Personal Assistant
Throughout this guide the term ‘employer’ will be used for users of social care services.
There are a lot of things to think about and consider before you decide that being a Personal Assistant is for you. We hope that this information will help with your decision.
The role of a Personal Assistant
The focus of the role is to support the employer to make their life easier and help them to maintain their independence. Personal Assistants will help to deliver support to those who need it, and at the same time, employers will have more choice, control and greater independence in how they live their lives. You might work with disabled people of any age, including disabled children or young people, but the important thing is that you will be supporting them to live as independent a life as possible.
Who are Personal Assistants?
A Personal Assistant may be someone who has worked in the caring profession (previously called a home carer) or someone who is new to the role who is interested in this very important and rewarding work. The role can also be taken by a friend, neighbour or relative not living at the same address as the employer.
What might a Personal Assistant do?
The Personal Assistant will help the employer to live in the community as independently as possible. The actual assistance will vary from employer to employer and from day to day. Tasks may include personal care such as:
Personal Care
Washing – This may be a bath, shower, strip wash at the sink, or a bed bath.
Dressing – Helping people to choose the clothes they want to wear, then supporting the appropriate stage of dressing each morning and undressing each evening.
Appearance – Supporting to brush hair, teeth, shave and apply creams and ointments.
Toileting – Supporting people through the stages of toileting.
Supporting Mobility
A personal assistant Assisting the employer to move:
From bed to chair, in and out of the bath and shower and In and out of a wheelchair.
The personal assistant might also use equipment such as hoists, and sliding sheets to help to transfer and reposition their employer.
Supporting health care needs
- Prompting/administering medications.
- Ensuring that your employer has fluids to drink and appropriate diet.
- Making doctors appointments.
- Maintaining risk free environments (where appropriate).
Domestic duties
Part of a personal assistant’s task may also include domestic duties; cleaning, cooking and shopping.
Supporting your employer outside of the home
It maybe that your employer will require some support to go out or attend hospital appointments. You won’t be able to be available for every eventuality, which underlines the importance of communication between you and your employer.
This is not a complete list but gives some idea of the duties you may be asked to cover.
Background information - why have things changed?
After many years of campaigning the drive for change was brought about through Disability Rights Groups. It was accepted nationally and locally that those receiving home care services can begin to lose their independence as a result of the model of homecare that was being commissioned for them. The and tended to have to receive support at a time that suited the routines of domiciliary care agencies rather than at a time that suited their own routines. There was also very little cope for flexibility or variation in the care plan from day to day.
With the new system, employers are assessed by the local authority and receive an amount of money called a Direct Payment to purchase their own help. The employer recruits and employs a personal assistant.
Direct Payments enable employers to have more choice, control and greater independence, but still arrange the support they need. The idea is that support given is designed with the employer’s full involvement and can be tailored to meet their own unique needs, with the help of reliable, well trained personal assistants.
The Personal Assistants Accreditation scheme
People interested in using direct payments have told us about some of the issues that prevent them going ahead, particularly the difficulty in recruiting Personal Assistants and their fears about recruiting someone they don’t know. We know that these fears are shared by families and carers. The recruitment process can also take a long time, particularly if more than one Personal Assistant is required.
In order to address some of these issues the Council is funding Community Links, the umbrella organisation for voluntary organisations in Bromley to set up a pilot accreditation scheme for Personal Assistants. Community Links will publicise the role of Personal Assistants and will enable people who are interested in becoming Personal Assistants and who meet the accreditation criteria to register on a database of Personal Assistants which will be available for prospective direct payment service users to view via the internet. This will assist both future and current users of direct payments as when they need to recruit a Personal Assistant there will be a pool of potential Personal Assistants for them to review.
In order to accredit potential Personal Assistants Community Links will carry out basic employment checks and take up references, so that employing people from the data base would be a relatively quick process for service users. The accreditation checks would be:
§ Enhanced CRB check / § Eligibility to work in UK§ Insurance / § Driving Licence
§ Training Qualifications (where stated) / § Two work related references
Training
Bromley Council funds a programme of training courses for all staff working with service users living in the community. The courses cover many areas of care which personal assistants may be required to carry out in the course of their work, such as;
§ manual lifting and handling
§ Health and Safety
§ First Aid
§ Food Hygiene
There is a nominal charge for attendance on the courses which are open to personal assistants working for employers in receipt of direct payments from Bromley Council. For some courses, such as manual lifting and handling the personal assistant might attend with their employer.
Safeguarding Adults
As service users move to more flexible care packages it is important that they are still protected from potential abuse. Alongside this guide you will have received a Safeguarding Alerters Guide setting out basic information about safeguarding Adults.
All PAs are advised to attend the FREE level one Safeguarding and Mental Capacity Act training courses when taking up employment.
For all enquiries or bookings for training courses please contact;
Mary Nash, Partnership Development Officer, on 020 8313 4205 or by e-mail
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