Welcome Phil - direct payment board co-chair.

Phil has wide and varied professional and personal experience that will be of great value to the direct payment board. Thank you Katie, previous co-chair, for your support to the board for several years. Best wishes for the future! 

Phil and his sister support their brother, who uses his direct payment for self-employed PA services. Find out more about Phil's journey, which has resulted in him taking on this role here. Phil has recently used Shropshire's PA Noticeboard to successfully recruit a PA. Here is a video that provides a short explanation of the PA Noticeboard. 

Resources for Personal Assistants (PAs)

For employed PAs there are over 95 online training courses available through Care Skills Academy including first aid, food hygiene and specific tasks and conditions. Employers can contact direct.payments@shropshire.gov.uk to request access to training for their PAs.

Partners in Care is a not-for-profit association supporting independent adult social care providers across Shropshire. They offer PAs training, representation, networking, discounted DBS checks and information, for £48 a year. This is available to self-employed and employed PAs. Any funding implications for employed PAs will need to be discussed with your adult social care team.     

Hearing from you

We are always interested to hear from you, and we are currently looking for specific feedback on your experiences of the PA Noticeboard. We want to determine whether it is meeting the goal of bringing people in search of PAs and PAs together, as well as considering anything that could be improved. A questionnaire will be sent out to you shortly if you are registered with the PA Noticeboard so please look out for it. Later in the year we will also be seeking feedback about direct payments in general. 

Virtual Drop In

The next opportunity to meet with the direct payment team over Microsoft Teams is Thursday 18th July at 2pm. This is a chance to chat, catch up, ask any questions and get support whether you are new to or familiar with direct payments. You can use the details below to join us. 

Just Credit Union

If you currently use a high street bank account for your direct payment and find the admin difficult or demanding, Just Credit Union (JCU) provide a direct payment specific account that provides support to manage payments to PAs, care agencies and other support providers. They also provide the necessary monitoring information required directly to the Council's finance team, reducing the amount of admin involved. The direct payment team work closely with staff at JCU to support smooth running of direct payments. 

JCU have recently provided a new email address for direct payment specific queries and contact - directpayments@justcreditunion.org and are updating their online information to make setting up accounts and using their service easier.

If you would like more information or support to move to a Just Credit Union account, please contact direct.payments@shropshire.gov.uk.