Greater Manchester Personal Assistant Network
The Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSC) indicate that the Personal Assistant (PA) workforce is the second largest in social care. However, the nature of direct payments means that the individual employers of PAs are often isolated. This has arguably led to a number of negative outcomes for the workforce, one being poor communication with individual employers and PAs throughout the pandemic and limited access to PPE. One individual employer told us:
I was left to try and source PPE myself, I had no clear guidance and was constantly checking the Public Health England Website.
Our aim is to improve conditions for individual employers and their PAs, by bringing together a host of organisations and individuals who are passionate about personalisation, choice and control.
What We Need
We are looking for one organisation/representative from each of the ten boroughs within Greater Manchester to attend 10 monthly meetings between Feb 2022 – Nov 2022.
The organisation will either be user-led or be able to demonstrate how they work in collaboration with individual employers and PAs. If your borough does not have an organisation that supports individual employers and PAs, we would be interested in forums, groups or individuals who are passionate about the area. You would need to demonstrate how you can gather the voice of individual employers and PAs in your area.
Organisations/representatives who join the panel will receive £1000 to attend 10 monthly meetings between Feb and Nov and gather feedback from employers and PAs in their locality.
We aim to have external speakers at each meeting, who will enhance the networks knowledge and give members useful information the can take back to their area.
Applications can be made here:
