After months of issues with Mum which resulted in her being hospitalised last year we (my sister and I) had two options open to us either Mum moves to a care home or we try a live-in carer. We tried the latter option as Mum wanted to be at home. At the time Mum was due to move back home the agency appointed by Social Services didn't have a carer available and another lady was appointed. Thankfully the lady that was appointed has been amazing for Mum and we couldn't be more impressed and grateful to her with what she has done for Mum. The problem is that we keep getting told that she needs to go and we receive cv's for other carers which is really upsetting. The carer that we have also wishes to stay with Mum for as long as is possible as the agency she is engaged through keep trying to send her elsewhere I suspect because they have some challenging cases (we do accept that at some point Mum may need to move into a nursing home). We have funding for Mum's care although we do pay a top up. Do we have any say in this situation whatsoever? I have spoken to Mum's social worker and she is saying we need to accept this and there is nothing we can do. Is there anyway we could engage the carer directly with social services paying the money to us rather than the agency?? I would welcome any help with this as just when we thought things were settling down (we have our Dad with dementia who is in a care home too) we get hit with another challenge.
Live In Carer
- Thread starter SunshineSmile
- Start date
I cannot help you much...but at least I will get your post ‘bumped’ to the first page. We ‘employ’ a lady to stay for 48 hours a week...but when I say ‘employ’ Actually we pay her, but she is self employed. This means that an invoice is presented, that we pay. She pays her own tax and NI. There are all sorts of responsibilities if you become an employer...insurance (our lady has her own public liability insurance), you would need to give holiday pay, pay the national insurance, and sort the tax too, I think. I guess an option might be if your lady leaves the agency and becomes self employed. I’m sorry, I don’t know how that would work with SS funding.
Slightly different circumstances but I tried live in carers for dad self funding. A clause in the contract stated the carer cannot become employed directly by the client for a period of time. This may or may not be the same with contract between SS/agency however the carer might themselves be contracted to something similar.
Yes, if you can get Social Services to give you what's called a "Direct Payment". They would figure out how much money to pay you and it would go into a specific account for you to use on care. It's quite admin heavy though and you'd have to become an employer with all that entails. I think there are organisations though that can help with that. You have to be very sure though that this particular carer wants to do that as they would have to cut their ties with the care agency to come and work exclusively for you. Please remember that carers/employees won't stay with you forever. They might want to change jobs after a while and then you have to start afresh, with no care agency to back you up.
Thank you everyone for your comments. The carer in question is actually self employed and is adamant that she wants to stay so I am going to investigate further with SS. We know that nothing lasts forever but whilst things are going well I want to hang onto this feeling.
She said that she is self employed but through an agency. Maybe they find the work but she pays her own tax, NI etc???
I was also thinking of my mum having what is called a personal assistant carer before she ended up in hospital. Social Services help you recruit such a person & then through one of the payroll companies they offer you ( for a charge) you directly employ this person so in effect they are self employed as they need to pay their tax & NI.
If you have funding then Social Services give you a Direct Payment for that & you may need to top up.
If she is employed through an agency then that is another matter. We had some truly amazing carers with the first agency that Social Services found for my mum but their agency pulled them out as they were an agency more for reablement & not traditional homecare. I really wasn’t happy that they were pulling out but didn’t have a choice in the matter, as soon as Social Services got another agency to take over my mum’s contract they were gone with no handover whatsoever. It was pretty brutal with no thought for the PWD whatsoever.
If you have funding then Social Services give you a Direct Payment for that & you may need to top up.
If she is employed through an agency then that is another matter. We had some truly amazing carers with the first agency that Social Services found for my mum but their agency pulled them out as they were an agency more for reablement & not traditional homecare. I really wasn’t happy that they were pulling out but didn’t have a choice in the matter, as soon as Social Services got another agency to take over my mum’s contract they were gone with no handover whatsoever. It was pretty brutal with no thought for the PWD whatsoever.
The way I understand and this is how the tax office explained it to me in 2014. Self employment status is that you cannot be so if you are working long term for one person only - then you should become an Employee, but you can have a number of short term employments to keep Self employed status. Maybe this is what the agency is doing, placing her in short term posts. At least this is how I worked before becoming mum's full time carer. Would be a good idea to get in touch with the tax office just to clear this one up. If her status changes to Employee for you, then you will be responsible for all Employer liabilities - a lot of extra work and money!
Yes, I don’t think that has changed. It is my understanding too, that if someone is working for only one person, then they are not self employed.
