I was wondering about private carers but not sure how to go about it. If I'm paying by Direct Payments does the carer have to be registered with Adult Services? Presumably they have to have Insurance too. I'd be really grateful for any advice
I was not happy with the agency care I received for my late mother, so when it came to finding carers for my father I decided to get private carers.
I wrote some adverts, printed them out (probably about twenty of them) and put them in local shop windows, the library, the art gallery and other public places. I got a lot of replies, but most people who replied were (in my view) unsuitable, for one reason or another. Eventually I found two ladies who had both been agency carers in the past, but who now worked for themselves. The whole search process from start to finish took me four weeks.
What I would say is that when I first found these carers, all my father needed was a bit of companionship and a few meals making, so any nice, sensible person without training would have been able to help. However, in the two years since I found them, my father has gone terribly downhill, and now needs help with every aspect of life. He cannot get washed and dressed without help, for instance. If these ladies had not been properly trained in care, they would not have been able to do the job as it is now. So I would say it is a good idea to look for people with as much training as possible, because you don't know how things are going to develop. One of my ladies did two years of nursing training, and this has turned out to be so useful and helpful that it makes my blood run cold to think how things would have been without her knowledge.
As this is a private arrangement, I don't see how it can have anything whatsoever to do with Adult Services or Social Services.
One of my ladies has insurance, and as far as I know the other one doesn't. This may not be strictly correct, but to be honest I don't care - I don't think she is the type of person to take me to court if she has an accident in my father's house. As they are both trained carers, they are trained in risk assessment, and they have both checked his house out for dangers - in fact, between them they have changed his house around a bit to make it safer for everyone.