Finding a carer in Southwark.

[bmd]

I'm looking for somewhere in the area that helps people find a carer. I'm not really interested in an agency that provides carers as my experience with them has been unremittingly poor. I would love to find a micro-carer. Not sure if they're a thing in Southwark. They're basically self-employed carers who can work for small blocks of time. You can employ someone for 2 hours in the day or 10 hours in the day.

I would ideally like to make contact with anyone who has a carer in this area or works in caring in this area and knows how the system works.

 

[DietCokeGirl]

Age UK Southwark may be able to signpost.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Age UK Southwark may be able to signpost.

that's the best i can think of, really

to be honest, i can see the attraction of having / being a freelance carer rather than going through some bunch of parasites that exploit their workers and don't really give a shit about their clients (i have a friend who was a care worker), but don't know how practical it is for carers to set up like that, in terms of things like insurance, DBS checking and registration with / oversight by care quality commission (or whatever it's called this week) and organising cover for if carer is taken ill / wants to go on holiday.

and for that matter, where would the person needing care stand in respect of employers liability insurance or the equivalent?

although out of curiosity, found this which appears to be there to match freelance carers with possible clients (no personal knowledge / experience of them at all) although i'd be a bit wary of the ones that appear to have no experience at all and / or are prepared to work for less than minimum wage...

 

[DietCokeGirl]

It's possible to use a personal budget alloted following a social care Care Needs Assessment to pay an independent carer or PA, however thet need to be registered self-employed, and do all the associated tax and NI and pension complexities, and provide invoices etc. It's not straight forward unfortunately, although this also acts as a protective factor as there's plenty of mean people willing to rip people off out there.

 

[iona]

It's possible to use a personal budget alloted following a social care Care Needs Assessment to pay an independent carer or PA, however thet need to be registered self-employed, and do all the associated tax and NI and pension complexities, and provide invoices etc. It's not straight forward unfortunately, although this also acts as a protective factor as there's plenty of mean people willing to rip people off out there.

I'm meant to have a PA through adult social care / direct payments and I was told I need to either pay for someone to deal with pay, tax etc. or do it myself. There's organisations that help with this stuff - one of the ones I was referred to, PeoplePlus, does stuff all over the country I think, though not sure if they only deal with direct payments or other funding too.

 

[bmd]

My daughter has a PA who is self-employed. It does sound scary but I imagine it's the same for all self-employed people like hairdressers, personal trainers etc. I have found that once we took that layer of admin out of the equation then it was much easier to deal with a PA directly. I guess it's horses for courses and there will be advantages of going with an agency, holiday cover for example.

Like you said iona, there are third party businesses who deal with the admin. In York there is a not-for-profit which has a statutory duty to be a kind of escrow system for the Direct Payment invoices. I imagine it is the same anywhere in the UK.

Anyway, please keep the suggestions coming. This is all so helpful. Really appreciate the input.