Making life a little bit easier for Personal Assistants
Personal Assistants care for people and help them stay in their own homes. It's a paid role and duties can include all aspects of daily life and help people to stay safe, and relatively independent in their own home.
We wanted to understand how they (as well as other Care organisations such as Care Homes and Domicilary Care) had coped during the first wave of Coronavirus.
Personal Assistants told us they felt left out and forgotten. Many of them talked about difficulties getting PPE and being recognised as a carer when trying to get food and supplies.
Since we published our report in November, we have shared all the findings with Medway Council. We also presented our findings to the Medway Health & Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HASC).
Councillors told us the feedback was “inciteful and informative” and the Council have committed to working with us and other partners in the Better Together Consortium (Medway Voluntary Action, Carers First, Kent Association for the Blind & Citizens Advice Medway) along with the Voluntary & Community Sector to address our recommendations and feedback in the report.
HASC members publicly thanked all health and social care workers for their commitment during the pandemic.
Medway Council have also acted upon the feedback from our report. Changes made as a result include:
- PPE is now available free of charge for all Personal Assistants and people who provide care for someone
- All care organisations including Pas now have access to a portal where they can order supplies of PPE and equipment
- Conversations have started to create a ‘card’ for Personal Assistants that clearly states that they look after someone and so should be given the same access as carers. This will be particularly helpful for PAs to be able to access supermarkets at particular times and to support clients in hospital.
We will continue to work with Medway Council and other organisations to progress other elements of our report.
So do keep sharing your stories with us. All your feedback is useful and will be shared (anonymously) with the right people to make sure your voice is heard.
Contact us anytime on 0800 136 656 or email enquiries@healthwatchmedway.com
Downloads
You can read the full report and all the feedback that we heard here.
