What happened to people employing their own care workers or Personal Assistants (PAs) during the Coronavirus pandemic? How did they manage? Did they stop this support; adjust to new ways of care and support; and have they restarted their PA or done something different? Did their local council contact them with advice, or was other information available? This study, focusing on the experiences of people employing their own care workers, will help answer these questions. They are important for social care practice now and in the future in case of new outbreaks of the virus or for another similar emergency.
This new study will ask people who employ PAs about their experiences during the time of lockdown and beyond. We want to talk with both people who pay for a PA by Direct Payments from the council and people who pay their PA independently. We will interview 70 individual employers (care users) and family members (if they are the employer because their relative cannot manage these arrangements), to learn from their experiences. We will also interview people from 5-6 brokerage or support agencies that help people find possible PAs, or support PA employers.
Project duration
1st November 2020 – 31st March 2022
Project funder
NIHR School for Social Care Research