The Government is committed to personalising social care services and is determined that all those eligible for support will have the opportunity to receive a personal budget by 2013. The employment of Personal Assistants (PAs) is a critical part of this transformation and to achieve the intended outcomes there has been a major shift towards supporting PAs, and those who employ them.
A framework for supporting Personal Assistants working in adult social care has been developed. It sets out a strategy for promoting and embedding support for the PA workforce and their employers. It is a starting point for further work and does not provide all the answers, but does bring together many of the issues in one place for the first time.
Over 160,000 people across England are now employing Personal Assistants to provide care and support for themselves or a loved one. The benefits and flexibility of becoming an employer also create added responsibilities. We know that this is often a new role for people and it can be a daunting prospect but there is lots of support available to make things simpler.
A toolkit to help people employ their own Personal Assistants
Skills for Care are there to help make the process easier to understand. They support employers (organisations and people who 'directly' employ PAs ) to acquire the knowledge and skills to manage their care effectively and support the sector to plan for the future using data from their National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC).
A guide for supporting PA’s
Skills for Care in partnership with working with the Department of Health has been commissioned to produce an implementation plan to manage and progress the delivery of the PA Framework. This will be done jointly with other government departments, national partner organisations, local authorities, people who use services, carers, user-led, voluntary and charitable organisations.
PA workforce implementation plan
For more information and resources please visit Skills for Care.
Additional funding from Skills for care for employers to train PA's will be avaialbe soon. Please visist the relevant funding pages of the Skills for Care website
Once a PA has been employed thought will need to be given regarding what training that they will need for their work. Training ensures that your PA keeps up to date with practice, works safely with you and gives them additional skills and confidence.
All of our learning and development opportunities are available to the whole of the PA workforce free of charge. Please see our training pages for details of what’s available and how to access it.
Workforce Development are committed to working with the PA workforce and would welcome any thoughts or suggestions that you may have to help us improve our services – Contact us here
