Portsmouth City Council

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Find a carer or personal assistant

If you, or someone you love, needs a bit of care or support to help them stay living at home, you may wish to find a paid carer or personal assistant.

They can help with all sorts of daily tasks at home, such as:

  • getting dressed and undressed
  • getting in and out of bed
  • preparing meals and drinks
  • using the toilet
  • personal care (e.g. having a bath or shower)
  • taking medication
  • helping you get out and about
  • paperwork
  • shopping, gardening or housework.

Care workers and personal assistants can also be trained to do specific health care tasks that might usually be done by a nurse.

If you think a care worker or personal assistant would be right for you, you can choose to:

If you’re arranging care on behalf of a relative or friend, you need to have their permission, unless you have Power of Attorney.

Adult social care

If you decide on adult social care, we’ll arrange a care needs assessment for you. We’ll work together to decide what care would be best for you, then support you to set it up.

If your care needs assessment shows you have ‘eligible needs’, we’ll then arrange a financial assessment, to work out how much of your care you will pay for yourself.

If your situation changes, you can call the adult social care helpdesk to:

  • ask for another review of your care,
  • cancel your care, or
  • reduce it.

To get a care needs assessment with Portsmouth City Council, you need to live in postcodes PO1 – PO6 and be aged 18 or over.

You can call our adult social care helpdesk on 023 9268 0810 for more information.

Personal assistants

Employing a personal assistant (PA) yourself allows you to decide who will support you, rather than support being provided by an agency.

PAs also offer friendship and companionship and many people appreciate the consistency of having one-to-one support from someone they know well and get on with.

The Portsmouth PA noticeboard is a free service for finding and recruiting a PA. It brings together assistants and those who’d like a more personal approach to hiring an assistant in their local area.

The noticeboard has information for employers about their responsibilities, advice on recruiting a PA, information about the PA role, and links to other useful websites.

Visit the Portsmouth PA noticeboard

Employing a personal assistant

A personal assistant may be employed by you directly so that you become their employer. This means you’re responsible for their pay, taxes, contract and pension. Alternatively they may be self-employed. Find out more about employing a PA.

If you’d like to recruit a personal assistant using the PA noticeboard, you’ll need to advertise the support you need, and you can then view the online profiles of available PAs.

If you have any questions or would like help with the process, the PA noticeboard team are available for advice and guidance. You can get in touch with them by emailing pa.noticeboard@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or calling 023 9243 7896.

Becoming a personal assistant

You can advertise your services as a personal assistant on the PA noticeboard.

A new website for the PA noticeboard is upcoming, which will include free online training, a new accreditation form and DBS checks for PAs.

In the meantime if you’d like to find out more about becoming a personal assistant, you can read this guide from Skills to Care: Being a personal assistant or contact the PA noticeboard team at the contact details below.

Phone: 02392 437 896
Email: mpa.noticeboard@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Care agencies

These are the agencies currently offering care in Portsmouth. If you would like to contact a care agency yourself, you can visit their websites at the links below. All these agencies are registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). You can visit the CQC website for more information on the quality of the service provided and when they were last inspected.