Your Rights and Expectations as a PA
As an employed Personal Assistant (PA) there are certain rights that you have under employment legislation. These cover a whole range of areas including:
- Employment contracts
- Working hours
- Pay and wages
- Flexible working
- Holiday, sickness and leave
- Lay offs and short-time working
- TUPE transfers
- Redundancy
- Dismissals
- COVID-19
- Health and wellbeing
- Time off for family (maternity, paternity, parental, adoption and shared parental leave) and time off for dependants
You can find a lot of useful information on employment rights on the ACAS website here: https://www.acas.org.uk/advice
One important area to be aware of is your contract of employment. There are certain requirements related to employment contracts.
The right to written terms
Anyone legally classed as an employee or worker has the right to a written document summarising the main terms of their employment.
The legal term for this document is the ‘written statement of employment particulars’. It includes information such as pay and working hours.
Many people think this document is the ’employment contract’, but legally the contract is much broader than the written terms of their employment.
Your expectations as a PA
As any employee, you can expect your employer to consider your needs in a number of different areas, including:
- Training
- Support and Supervision
- Learning and development
- Health and safety
- Any reasonable adjustments you might require
- Any caring role that you might have
Employers expectations of PAs
Whilst the responsibilities of your role as a PA will be outlined in your contract of employment, there are other general expectations outlined in national standards. These include the Health and Social Care Standards ‘My support, my life’. You can find more details here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/health-social-care-standards-support-life/documents/
What are the Standards?
The Health and Social Care Standards set out the expectations that someone should have when using health, social care or social work services in Scotland. They seek to provide better outcomes for everyone, to ensure that individuals are treated with respect and dignity and that the basic human rights we are all entitled to are upheld. The objectives of the Standards are to drive improvement and promote flexibility in the delivery of care and support.
The 5 Outcomes that the Standards are designed to meet are that people receiving support:
1) Experience high quality care and support that is right for them
2) Are fully involved in all decisions about their care and support
3) Have confidence in the people who support and care for them
4) Have confidence in any organisation that provides my care and support
5) Experience a high quality environment if an organisation provides the premises
PAs would also be expected to work to the expectations of the Health and Social Care Standards.
Next steps
You can find further information on Health and Social Care Standards at the Scottish Government website found below.