Employing Personal Assistants

There are a number of key steps to employing Personal Assistants - the below summary is designed to help ensure the arrangements you put in place are both safe and comply with all relevant employment legislation.

It may be that you already know or have identified the individual you wish to employ as a Personal Assistant. In this instance, you still need complete a number of the stages below, to ensure the support you receive is safe and aligned to your PHB agreement with NHS NWL.

If you require assistance with any stage of the process, please contact your Independent Living Advisor who will be happy to assist.


To find out more about the process of employing a Personal Assistant, please follow steps 1 to 6 below:

The first step on the journey to employing your own Personal Assistants is to find the individual that you would like to provide support to you. It may be that you have already identified the individuals you wish to work with, but if this is not the case, you will need to work through the recruitment process.

Important tasks include:

- Produce a Job Description and Person Specification - this is where you can set out the tasks you will require your Personal Assistant to complete and can detail the skills and characteristics you are looking for.

- Writing a job advert - this is where you will set-out important details, such as rates of pay and hours of work

- Advertising the role - most individuals find that a combination of traditional and digital advertising works best.

Once you have found the individual that you wish to employ as a Personal Assistant, there are a number of important tasks to complete before you can issue a formal contract of employment:

- Conditional offer - this is where you formally write to the individual offering them the role as your personal assistant, subject to the successful completion of some pre-employment checks

- References - the individual should have provided details of someone that will act as a referee when they applied for the role. You will need to contact this individual and request a reference.

- Enhanced DBS certificate - You will need to apply for an Enhanced DBS certificate for each PA. There is funding to cover this in your PHB and your Independent Living Advisor is able to support you with this process. Please ask your Independent Living Advisor for further information.

- Right to Work (RTW) check - Before you issue a contract of employment, you need to confirm the individual’s right to work in the UK. This can be confirmed by the individual providing an official document from a list issued by the UK government. An up-to-date list of appropriate documents is available on the UK government website 

= Check if a document allows someone to work in the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Once you have successfully completed all the pre-employment tasks highlighted in Step 2, you are ready to start preparing for your PAs first day at work. Important tasks to complete in advance of your PAs start date include:


Contract of employment - You will need to issue a formal offer of employment to your personal assistant. This will detail important information including:

·       Probationary period
·       Rate of pay
·       Hours of work and breaks
·       Pension arrangements
·       Holiday entitlement
·       Notice period
·       Illness absence process and pay

HMRC Registration - It is a legal requirement that you register as an employer with HMRC. Once registered, HMRC will provide you with an employer PAYE reference number that you will need to pass to your payroll provider. Registration with HMRC is a straightforward process that can be completed online - Register as an employer - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

**Please contact your Independent Living Advisor if you require any support working through the online form**  


Payroll  - It is important to ensure that payments to both your PAs and statutory organisations such as HMRC are made accurately and on time. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is to employ the services of a payroll provider to manage this for you. There is a payroll solution called Virtual Wallet Payroll included as part of your Virtual Wallet account.

Alternatively, you can choose to work with another payroll 3rd party payroll organisation. Please speak to your Independent Living Advisor for further information

Home Employment Insurance - Ensuring appropriate insurance is in place is crucial. These policies are designed for individual employers and can offer protection in a variety of scenarios. Typically, these policies provide cover both inside and outside the home and can be extended to cover specific delegated healthcare tasks as required. 

Policies are available from a range of specialist insurance providers, including Mark Bates Ltd and Fish Insurance


Training - Your support plan will detail a range of training that is recommended your personal assistants complete to help ensure the support you receive is safe. Your insurance provider will often provide access to a range of courses as part of your Home Employment policy.

Alternatively, your Independent Living Advisor can help you to source appropriate training providers in your area.


Health and Safety - It is your responsibility to ensure your Personal Assistants are safe whilst at work. If you employ more than 5 PAs, you will need a health and safety policy.

If required, your Independent Living Advisor is able to provide you with a template document to complete.

Once you have identified the individual who you wish to employ as a Personal Assistant, you will need to let your Independent Living Advisor know so they can start the process of registering the Personal Assistant on Virtual Wallet.
 
 
To do this, the Independent Living Advisor will need to know:

·       The name of the Personal Assistant
·       A contact number and email address for the Personal Assistant
·       The contracted number of hours of support they will provide each week
·       The gross rate of pay
·       The date which Personal Assistant will start to provide support to you
·       You will also need to confirm which payroll provider you wish to work with.


If you choose to use Virtual Wallet Payroll, your Independent Living Advisor will be able to help start the payroll registration process with the Virtual Wallet payroll team.

If you choose to use a 3rd party payroll provider, you will need to contact the organisation directly and complete their own registration forms. Your Independent Living Advisor will need to know:

·       The name of the 3rd party payroll provider
·       A contact number and email address for the 3rd party payroll provider


**If you could provide this information to your Independent Living Advisor via email, that would be ideal - but they are happy to take this information over the phone if that is easier for you**

Once they have all the appropriate information, your Independent Living Advisor will arrange for the Virtual Wallet support team to contact your Personal Assistant, inviting them to register on Virtual Wallet.

This is a simple process for the Personal Assistant and once completed, they will be sent their own Virtual Wallet log-in details, allowing them to submit timesheets for you to review using your own Virtual Wallet account.

The Virtual Wallet support team will liaise with the Personal Assistant directly to get everything set-up in advance of the start date on your PHB.

If you have chosen to work with a 3rd party payroll provider, the Virtual Wallet support team will contact them to invite them to register on Virtual Wallet and agree a way of working together to ensure payroll runs smoothly for both you and your employees.

Once your Personal Assistant is registered on Virtual Wallet, you will receive an email confirming your Virtual Wallet login details and instructions on how to manage your Virtual Wallet account.

The Personal Assistant should start providing care in line with the arrangements you have agreed with them and submit timesheets on a regular basis using Virtual Wallet.

You should review and approve these timesheets within 3 days of them being submitted using your Virtual Wallet account.



**If you need any help or support accessing your Virtual Wallet account, please contact the Virtual Wallet support team**