Skills for Care have estimated that there are about 100,000 people working as personal assistants for people receiving direct payments. However, this number has remained largely unchanged over the past 10 years, unlike other areas of the adult social care workforce where there have been increases in the number of workers employed in the sector. What can be done to make it easier for people to receive and use Direct Payments and increase the number of people choosing to work as a personal assistant?

Sam Wood-Ede, Direct Payments Manager for Adult Social Care at Hertfordshire County Council and Chris Fincham will talk about the work Hertfordshire County Council has been doing to develop and implement their direct payments and individual service funds strategy and the steps it has taken to make it easier for people using direct payments, including ways of recruiting personal assistants.

This is an event in the Health and Social Care Workforce Research Forum at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King's College London.

Header image: County flag of Hertfordshire