The employment conditions of social care personal assistants in England

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.