Fifty Per Cent Of UK Personal Assistants And Social Carers Are Not Qualified

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Yet at the same time, it is these assistants who are coming out on top over local authority staff with regard to care, understanding and better ways of working.

The publication which serves as a support centre providing news reports, articles and other information for both social staff, patients, carers and clients needing personal care on a day to day basis has stated that vulnerable people with mental and physical disabilities are putting themselves in danger as it has also been revealed that another 46% of clients don’t even check references before hiring, yet the actual case is the complete opposite.

The social industry is a growing one and in recent news items we do not have to be reminded of the growing number of inadequate staff taking advantage of people who need personal care. Thousands of people, the vast majority of them living alone, need the help of someone they can trust to come in, help them get up, dress, wash and make meals for them as well as give them emotional support and comfort or sometimes just a listening ear. It is these people in need who are sometimes preyed upon by “care staff” who have more on their minds other than caring for their client. This is what we would probably think, yet the clients say differently.

The report has been issued under the title of The Employment aspects of direct payments, which in itself is the first study of its kind and the first study of this size for and about the role of patient being the direct employer of their staff rather than taking an assistant from local councils.

The study which has proved to be quite alarming reading took the interview results of 500 people who were asked a series of basic questions about the procedures of how they would employ someone to be a personal carer. The clients were all direct payment recipients. Around 486 personal assistants working as such were also asked and these results were collected in the light of the recent request for all personal carers and assistants to be registered in some way. The recent news from the General Social Care Council has stated that they are yet to decide either way on this matter.

Those who took part in the survey who employed carers to work in their own homes for them thought that a list of personal assistants who had been verified would be a very good idea.

Surprising enough, the assistants who also took part in the survey said that they welcomed the move towards a registered list.

Yet this has also posed the question between who would be most employable – council based social workers or actual personal assistants who are not paid by the council – it was thought that personal assistants, due to the payment they receive from the patient directly, tend to work far more efficiently and with better knowledge than council workers who are employed and paid by the local authority.

With regard to qualifications, out of those who employ personal assistants directly, two thirds said that they were not sure of their assistant’s qualifications, this was backed up by the assistants saying that they actually did not have any qualifications. Other employers said that they understood their assistant to have virtually no experience in health and social care, either voluntary or otherwise. This figure was nearly half of the clients surveyed.

However, 42% of personal assistants said they possessed formal qualifications, with 23% holding NVQs of some kind. Although these respondents were not necessarily employed by the recipients interviewed, the report said this suggested employers were not always aware of the qualifications their personal assistants held.

It has also been suggested that clients using one to one care services from their local authority are more likely to be victim to abuse of some kind rather than employing someone directly. According to figures, 18% of clients received abuse from local authority staff.

So before we put down these people who are employed as carers of the utmost personal nature who have no qualifications, no experience and no previous social care work, we must realise that it is not qualifications and experience which makes you a genuine, caring, considerate and patient person – it is life which brings these qualities, not an examination room….

With 89% of clients who directly employed these personal assistants, being totally satisfied with who they employed – it’s hard to argue…