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Taking on your own personal assistant

You may want to take on a personal assistant directly and you can advertise for
personal assistants in job centres, local newspapers, and local organisations’
newsletter/websites or put a notice in local post office, shops, and colleges of
further education. You could also use somebody you know already.

The advantage of employing someone directly is that they will work for you and
you have a greater choice and control over what they do and when. However it
also means you may become their employer and have certain responsibilities.

See our factsheet ‘Taking on a personal assistant’ for more on this. You can
download this factsheet from www.disabilitytaxguide.org.uk/about/resources

What do you need from a PA?

You should think carefully about exactly what help you need so that the most
suitable personal assistant can be found.
You should think about writing a job description, which may include:

• a list of all the tasks you may need help with

• any particular skills or qualifications your personal assistant must have –
for example, a nursing qualification or a full driving licence
• an estimate of the number of hours and days you will need the person
to work

• your contact details

• the general area in which you live.

Skills for Care have created a toolkit to help
individual employers recruit their own care and
support staff. There are some really useful
templates in there that you can use, including a
job description:

www.employingpersonalassistants.co.uk

Having a personal assistant helping you in your
own home can be very empowering but can also
be challenging. A detailed ‘Outline of Role’ and
‘Code of Conduct’ will help everybody involved
get a clear understanding of what is expected and
means it is less likely that misunderstandings
about the the nature of the job will arise later on
down the line.

page 10 Taking on a personal assistant – a basic guide • Finding a personal assistant