Salary: £14.00 -15.00 p/h (as of 14th October 2024)
Place of work: London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Reports to: Individual employer
Contract period: Various hours as needed
*Please note there is no deadline for this position as there is a constant demand for personal assistants from our clients
The Organisation
Action on Disability (AoD), founded in 1979, is one of London’s leading Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs). AoD is a medium sized charity with a Board of Trustees, a strong pool of staff and volunteers, including many with lived experience of disability – all of whom are passionate about removing the barriers faced by disabled people.
AoD’s Direct Payments Support Service (DPSS)
At Action on Disability we support individuals to employ their own care and support staff (we are not a recruitment agency; we are a support service). This means you will not be employed by Action on Disability, but directly by the individual themselves or by a representative who is acting on their behalf.
The Post
Personal Assistant
Personal assistants (PA) usually support individuals in their own home or to go out into the community.
You will be employed directly by an individual who is a client or the representative of a client of the Direct Payments Support Service (DPSS) of the charity Action on Disability (AoD).
Our clients receive direct payments from the local authority. They use these direct payments to commission their own care and support. Employing personal assistants is a way disabled people can have choice and control over care and support arrangements.
Job Description
The responsibilities of a PA may include some or all the following. A PA contributes to the well-being of people by:
- Being a companion to the individual, maintaining social interactions
- Supporting individuals to manage bookings and going out to appointments
- Supporting individuals to organise their paperwork
- Accompanying or supporting individuals to access or engage in education, training, work, social, physical or volunteering activities
- Supporting individuals to make use of community services
- Accompanying or supporting with shopping
- Supporting individuals to maintaining their family and other personal relationships
- Supporting individuals to carry out their caring responsibilities for their children
- Supporting with cleaning the household or other domestic tasks, maintaining a safety and habitable home environment
- Supporting individuals to maintain their health, for example monitoring or prompting them to take medication
- Supporting with dressing to make sure individuals are appropriately clothed
- Supporting with meal preparation
- Supporting with eating or drinking to maintain nutrition (note: not all clients require the PA to support with eating or drinking)
- Supporting with washing or showering or other personal care tasks to maintain personal hygiene (note: not all clients require the PA to deliver personal care)
Person specification
The successful candidate should:
- Have the right to work in the UK. Due to the nature of this position, we are unable to offer sponsorship.
- Be able to commute to the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
- Be willing to have an Enhanced DBS check arranged by AoD or the employer.
- Possess good listening and communications skills
- Have basic literary and numeracy skills.
- Have some previous experience and understanding when working with disabled or vulnerable people
- Show respect to, and protect and promote the dignity, privacy and welfare of their employer.
- Be caring, responsible, and reliable, yet encouraging and enabling
- Be willing to build up local knowledge and to learn new skills
- Be able to work on own initiative, to display flexibility and good time management
- Be punctual
- Have received or be willing to receive general training such as assisting and moving people, basic life support, fire safety, food safety, health and safety awareness, infection prevention and control, medication management and safeguarding. AoD will support your employer to provide these training to you.
- You must accept appropriate training assigned to you by your employer to meet their specific needs.
Working schedule
The working schedule of a PA depends on the care and support needs of the disabled client as assessed by the council.
We offer PA posts with working hours ranging from 3 hours to 40 hours per week. Some of these posts only require the PA to work on particular weekdays, while others may require the PA to come on weekend only or require weekend availability.
Many PAs work for the same employers for many years.
The detailed working schedule of a PA is usually with a degree of flexibility and is negotiable between the PA and the client or their representative.
Many PAs choose to work part-time so that they can balance their other responsibilities (such as family or study). Other PAs may work for two or more clients of us to build up their hours
Pay, right and benefits
- £14.00 – £15.00 per hour (as on 11th October 2024) depending on the personal budget of the client assessed by the council.
- Since PAs employed by our clients or their representatives are their employees, you will be able to enjoy all the statutory employment rights and benefits.
- You will be paid by a payroll service company engaged by your employer which will deal with HMRC, usually on a 4-weekly or monthly basis.
Application:
Please complete the attached application form and send it back to dpsupport@aod.org.uk
Please note we do not accept CV’s, application forms only.