Pass Card Update

Who and what are  Personal Assistants?

It could be your neighbour, the person who works in your local supermarket, a parent at school, someone you train alongside at the gym,  the person sitting next to you on a train.

At present approximately 1 in every 190 people of working age in the UK are employed as Personal Assistants (PAs) and this is set to rise to 1 in every 25 people by 2025.  Despite this PAs are seemingly the UK’s best kept secret.

Who are these mystery PAs and what is it that they do?

Skills for Care, the government funded body for adult social care in England, defines a Personal Assistant as follows;

A personal assistant (sometimes called a PA or a support worker) is employed by people who need social care, either because of their age or disability, to enable them to live as independently as possible.  

In practice, PAs are individuals who provide care and support to those who need it most in our communities. They enable older people and those with disabilities to be as independent as possible and to stay in their homes. Without the PA workforce many people would be left with little choice other than to go into institutionalised care.

At PASS we believe that PAs are currently undervalued by society as a workforce despite being invaluable to the people they support.  Employed directly by individuals and often working in their homes on a one to one basis, PAs work in isolation from each other in some of the most challenging environments.  This is in stark contrast to other social care staff working directly for local authorities or privately run care agencies who, as a minimum, have access to line management and peer support.  PASS believes that this isolation denies PAs basic access to peer support or even the collective identity required to seek better working conditions.  

When we talk of working conditions, we are referring to the fact that PAs:

• Are called upon to work irregular hours much of the time often with no guarantee of work at all
• Often carry out work which takes an emotional toll such as when working for someone who is near the end of their life
• Are offered little job security as their positions are reliant on the individual receiving funding themselves from a third party
• Receive very low wages
• Are presented with little or no opportunity to develop in their role

PAs unhappy about their working conditions are all too aware that the family or person they work for has very little control over the funds allocated to them and therefore little power to improve their working conditions.  Furthermore PAs are often close friends with or related to the person they work for creating a unique conflict of interest not found anyway else in social care.

PAs provide support and care to people and build close trusting relationships.  The work they do is invaluable.  Sadly, in many cases, their employers are not equipped or funded adequately to support them in the basic way we have all come to expect and acknowledge as being right and proper in the workplace.   

At PASS we are not pointing the finger of blame at either the employers themselves or the funding bodies (Local Authorities/NHS) providing the money via a Direct Payment.  On the contrary, PASS was created in response to experiences of working to support employers in receipt of Direct Payments and we believe strongly in the benefits of independent living, personalisation and self-directed support.

We are saying that in order to sustain the inevitable growth in the PA workforce which is set to reach a staggering 1.2 million by 2025, more recognition and support is required. PASS Card - Personal Assistant Support Service, was created to ensure this happens while giving a voice, support and national recognition to the PA workforce.

In July 2011 the Department of Health published, “Working for personalised care: A framework for supporting personal assistants working in adult social care”.  

In it they made the following pledges to;

• Promote a wider understanding of PA working;
• Help PA employers to better understand their needs by determining the qualities they want from employees, in order to build strong and working relationships;
• Ensure that employers and PAs are aware of their roles and responsibilities and have adequate access to appropriate advisors and support services

The intentions of this document were welcomed and long overdue, however it is questionable whether they have been followed through successfully in the four years since the framework was published.  The reality would suggest that PAs are still, far too often, the forgotten group or afterthought.  When problems do arise PAs might receive support from Direct Payment support services on an ad hoc basis at best but are more likely to be passed on to the local citizens advice bureau (CAB).

At PASS we believe it is important not to lose sight of the pledges made by the government and to do all we can to  make them a reality.  We believe this is possible by ensuring PAs are always heard and considered in a meaningful way beyond the often tokenistic measures currently offered such as  the development of a PA noticeboard or signpost to the CAB.

We are going to be using this blog over the coming months to compare the working conditions of PAs with other social care and healthcare jobs such as support workers, healthcare assistants and nurses.

If you are a PA, PA employer or someone who works in this field please get in touch and leave your comments below.  

It’s time to start the conversation and be heard!