Find a personal assistant (PA) for care and support

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A PA can provide one-to-one support to help you live independently at home.

This can include:

household tasks, such as cleaning, gardening and shopping
personal care, like washing and dressing
healthcare tasks, after the PA completes relevant training
looking after children and pets
driving, attending appointments and leisure activities
organising paperwork
communicating with professionals and family members involved in your care and support

For more information about the PA role, visit:
Personal assistant | Skills for Care
'Personal assistant' role category - GOV.UK

What support do you need?

Before looking for a PA, consider:

what support you need and when
do you need more than one PA?
whether the PA will support you long term or short term. For example, while you recover from an operation.
does the PA need to have any specific experience, skills and training?

You can find out more on our personal assistant recruitment checklist.

How will you pay for the PA support?

Before looking for a PA you will also need to know whether:

you will pay the cost yourself
you can get funding from Adult Social Care towards the cost

To find out if you are eligible for funding, see Paying for care at home.

If you receive funding from direct payments and would like help to find a PA, see Help with direct payments.

Do you need to employ your PA?

Before the PA starts, you will need to find out their correct employment status. This is important. It affects the way their tax and National Insurance is calculated and paid.

If you don’t get it right you may have to pay backdated tax, National Insurance contributions and fines.

For more information, read: Factsheet: Using personal assistants