The employment conditions of social care personal assistants in England
| Published date | 28 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-06-2019-0017 |
| Pages | 296-306 |
| Date | 28 November 2019 |
| Author | John Woolham,Caroline Norrie,Kritika Samsi,Jill Manthorpe |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Adult protection,Safeguarding,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Abuse |
The employment conditions of social care
personal assistants in England
John Woolham, Caroline Norrie, Kritika Samsi and Jill Manthorpe
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to describe the employment conditions of social care personal
assistants (PAs) in England. In England, disabled adults have been able to directly employ people to meet
their care or support needs for a number of years, little is known about the employment conditions of people
who are directly employed.
Design/methodology/approach –PAs were recruited mainly through third sector and user led
organisations. A total of 105 social care PAs took part in a semi-structured telephone interview, which on
average was an hour long. Interviews were fully transcribed. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS
(v.24) and qualitative data by NVIVO software.
Findings –The paper focuses on employment conditions: contracts, pay, pensions, national insurance,
overtime, holiday and sick pay, etc. Access to training and support are also described. Though PAs enjoyed
considerable job satisfaction, many did not enjoy good employment conditions. Though employer abuse was
uncommon, many PAs could arguably be described as exploited. Occupational isolation and lack of support
to resolve disputes was striking.
Research limitations/implications –Though this may be currently the largest qualitative study of PAs in
the UK, it is nonetheless relatively small and no claims for generalisability are made, though the geographical
spread of the sample was wide and recruited from multiple sites.
Practical implications –PAs are an effective way of establishing relationship-based care, and confer direct
control to disabled employers. Many PAs experienced high job satisfaction. However, lack of regulation and
oversight creates considerable potential for exploitation or abuse. This may make the role less attractive to
potential PAs in the medium term.
Social implications –Social care PAs may be a very effective means of achieving genuinely person-centred
care or support for many people. However, PAs do not always appear to enjoy satisfactory conditions of
employment and their role is largely unregulated. Growth and long-term sustainability of this emergent role
may be jeopardised by these employment conditions.
Originality/value –Little is known about PA working conditions. This study suggests that much more needs
to be done to improve these.
Keywords Employment conditions, Exploitation, Direct employment, Disabled people,
Relationship-based care and support, Social care personal assistants
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Personal assistants (PAs) are a small, but growing segment of the social care workforce in
England (SfC, 2018, p. 18). Their growth was facilitated by the introduction of Direct Payments in
England in 1996 (DH, 1996) and enshrined in the Care Act 2014. These permissive legal changes
enable people who cannot afford to pay care workers from their own resources to secure
public funding. This is in the form of a personal budgets, taken as a Direct Payment to
pay for care or support. Personal budgets are also being facilitated within England’s National
Health Service (NHS) via Personal Health Budgets offered to people with chronic health
problems (NHS England, n.d.).
In contrast to care workers who are employed by a private or not for profit care agency, PAs
are either directly employed by people with support or care needs (or their proxies) or are
Received 6 June 2019
Revised 26 August 2019
2 September 2019
Accepted 6 September 2019
John Woolham,
Caroline Norrie, Kritika Samsi,
and Jill Manthorpe are all based
at Social Care Workforce
Research Unit, King’s College
London, London, UK.
PAGE296
j
THE JOURNAL OF ADULT PROTECTION
j
VOL. 21 NO. 6 2019, pp. 296-306, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1466-8203 DOI 10.1108/JAP-06-2019-0017
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