Personal Assistants

Who are Personal Assistants?

Someone who is employed by an individual with care or support needs, who is in receipt of a personal budget. Personal Assistants increase independence, enabling and sustaining the rights of individuals to make choices about how they live their lives. Personal Assistants are integral to the personalisation of social care. Personalisation is about ensuring care and support is delivered in a more person-centred way and tailored to the needs of individuals.

Personal Assistant duties include:

• Personal care, washing and bathing
• Cooking and preparing food
• Assisting with meeting people, socialising and leisure activities
• Shopping
• Getting into and out of bed and chairs
• Taking or injecting medicine
• Getting to and using the toilet
• Assisting with banking, paying bills, collecting pensions or benefits

Grossdale will set out the requirements for prospective Personal Assistants in their job description. We will provide DBS check for prospective Personal Assistants. We consider Personal Assistant needs to be reliable, punctual, efficient and flexible due to the nature of the job. Personal Assistants are involved in the everyday aspect of the personal life of a service user, therefore they will need to be loyal and discrete.

Grossdale will provide training for example in Care Certificate, Moving and Assisting, Safeguarding Adults or Food Hygiene. There are different ways to learn: e-learning; workbook; or face-to-face training. All opportunities are free of charge.

Grossdale Care Agency is part of the Workforce Development Fund (WDF) and National Minimum Data Set Social Care (NMDS-SC) therefore we are eligible for funding for our Personal Assistants and Care Staff to access Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) courses.