Direct payment users treasure their relationships with their personal assistants, but can feel uncomfortable on pay dayBy Simon Heng
One of the great things about being trained as a cognitive behavioural therapist is that I can now lead a guilt-free existence, which, as I was brought up in the faith which relies on guilt for its ongoing membership, I take as a personal achievement.
Almost.
There is one time in my life, every month, when I not only feel slightly guilty, but embarrassed as well. That's when I pay my personal assistants.
They literally keep me alive, feeding me, and keeping me hydrated. Helping me to avoid developing pressure sores, to maintain my medication routine and to stay healthy generally.
Not just that: my PAs help to maintain the quality of my life: they help me to interact with my children, to keep my home clean, to drive me and my children around so that we can have some kind of social life. They help me cook the kind of food I like. They try to cover for each other when sick, and when they need holidays. And they do it all with a sense of professionalism, friendliness and an air that there is little that is too much trouble.
Happy staff
They make my life at least bearable, and at best like everybody else's. I have had problems with staff turnover, but this particular bunch seem happy to stick with me.
So I get a pang of guilt when I calculate their pay every month, given that the value of the work they do for me bears no relationship to how much they're paid. And how much they are paid isn't even really my decision.
In its analysis of recruitment and retention, the Social Care Employers Consortium (Scec), which represents 41 organisations, employing 65,000 workers, concludes that little has changed since a similar study in 2004. There are fewer recruitment problems, probably because of initiatives by employers, rather than to any government action.
Shelf filling
Pay levels are still comparable with shelf-filling in supermarkets. Although the government claims to be spending £800m more on adult social care than in 2004, and £290m in training and development, this, arguably, has been spent on tackling the shortfalls in care, rather than increasing wages.
So maybe I shouldn't feel guilty, nor employers represented by organisations like Scec - it is the politicians who set the budgets who should. But being a politician is one of the other ways of leading a guilt-free existence.
Simon Heng is a wheelchair user and is involved in service user-led groups
Published in the 2 October edition of Community Care under the headline 'My guilt's final refuge'
There is one time in my life, every month, when I not only feel slightly guilty, but embarrassed as well. That's when I pay my personal assistants.
They literally keep me alive, feeding me, and keeping me hydrated. Helping me to avoid developing pressure sores, to maintain my medication routine and to stay healthy generally.
Not just that: my PAs help to maintain the quality of my life: they help me to interact with my children, to keep my home clean, to drive me and my children around so that we can have some kind of social life. They help me cook the kind of food I like. They try to cover for each other when sick, and when they need holidays. And they do it all with a sense of professionalism, friendliness and an air that there is little that is too much trouble.
Happy staff
They make my life at least bearable, and at best like everybody else's. I have had problems with staff turnover, but this particular bunch seem happy to stick with me.
So I get a pang of guilt when I calculate their pay every month, given that the value of the work they do for me bears no relationship to how much they're paid. And how much they are paid isn't even really my decision.
In its analysis of recruitment and retention, the Social Care Employers Consortium (Scec), which represents 41 organisations, employing 65,000 workers, concludes that little has changed since a similar study in 2004. There are fewer recruitment problems, probably because of initiatives by employers, rather than to any government action.
Shelf filling
Pay levels are still comparable with shelf-filling in supermarkets. Although the government claims to be spending £800m more on adult social care than in 2004, and £290m in training and development, this, arguably, has been spent on tackling the shortfalls in care, rather than increasing wages.
So maybe I shouldn't feel guilty, nor employers represented by organisations like Scec - it is the politicians who set the budgets who should. But being a politician is one of the other ways of leading a guilt-free existence.
Simon Heng is a wheelchair user and is involved in service user-led groups
Published in the 2 October edition of Community Care under the headline 'My guilt's final refuge'
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