In this 17-month study we will provide evidence of the experiences of people employing their own care workers (Personal Assistants – PAs) during and after the Covid-19 pandemic to inform and improve care practice. Our previous work has asked PAs about their work during the Coronavirus pandemic. This new study will ask people who employ PAs about their experiences during the time of lockdown and beyond. We want to talk with people from different background and circumstances (e.g. those who may have ‘shielded’ or have a particular risk factor) and with both people who pay for a PA by Direct Payments from the council and those who pay their PA independently.

We will interview 70 individual employers (care users) and family members (if they are the employer because their relative cannot manage these arrangements), to learn from their experiences. We will also interview people from 5-6 brokerage or support agencies that help people find possible PAs, or support PA employers. The interviews will be done by phone or by video. We will examine and compare people’s experiences so that we can learn from them about the main pandemic period and beyond (if the virus declines) and to produce reports and outputs that are useful.

Outputs expected in 2022