PA Pool founder and director, Katy Etherington, was honoured to be invited to be a panellist in an online seminar for Discover! Creative Careers Week as part of National Careers Week between 1-5 March 2021. The live Q&A panels ran throughout the week, to allow young people to submit questions and have them answered by [...]

You only have one chance to make the right impression with a photo online – so make sure it’s the right one! Not many of us are lucky enough to have a professional photographer to hand when we need a headshot for an online profile. But there are some simple rules we can follow that [...]

Many disabled people have for as long as 30 years used PAs and Care Workers from the EU and EEA countries as well as from countries further afield. This has increased their choice and control over the care they receive and for many has been invaluable. One of the many negative outcomes of taking back [...]

Many of the personal care assistants looking after our members are originally from Europe – how will Brexit affect their employment rights? As the UK heads towards Brexit, the right to free movement ends at the end of 2020. This means that EU citizens will no longer be able to come to the UK to [...]

It seems so simple…to find a PA to carry out personal tasks and to pay them by the day to be there doing it all. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement – work in exchange for money – or it should be… However, in a complex society such as ours, there are all sorts of regulations [...]

Lots of our Carers/PA’s (Personal Care Assistants) are upgrading to become Premium PA’s on our website now so that they can really stand out from the crowd. Registering as a PA and looking for work on PA Pool still remains free of charge; however, PA/Carers can pay a small fee and upgrade to become a [...]

Here at PA Pool we love inspirational stories and this one on the Metro website caught our eye! A young woman – Natasha Lambert – with cerebral palsy is set to sail 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean by using only her mouth to control a specially adapted 46ft catamaran. How on earth can she [...]

So it’s been a few months since we added some new functions to our website, and we would be really interested to hear your opinions! Are you finding the Shift Calendar useful? Did you know that you can now also Search for someone’s availability for work by date? You can find this in the Search [...]

Have you seen the official trailer for the new Paralympics documentary yet? Click on the link below to take a look. Having grown to become the world’s third largest sporting event, the documentary – entitled Rising Phoenix – will look both at the history and current standing of the Games. Rising Phoenix will be launching [...]

Good Care Month runs from 1 to 31 July and is intended to celebrate the hard work of our PAs and Carers. We have seen evidence of this throughout the Coronavirus pandemic with #ClapForOurCarers and #ClapforNHS. In Hertfordshire alone – where PA Pool HQ is based – around 4,000 paid carers are recruited each year, [...]

We have been contacted about a new online survey by the University of Kent about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on care workers’ wellbeing and workload. The questionnaire relates to everyone working in social care. It takes about 10 minutes to complete and can be done on your mobile. It’s completely anonymous but you [...]

The world has become more accessible for disabled people since work, leisure and socialising got taken online as a result of Coronavirus… It’s ironic that while the world has discovered what it is like to be unable to go to the pub, go to gigs, travel or visit museums, COVID-19 has opened up a whole [...]

Though the latest detailed guidance from the Government makes no specific reference to disabled people, it does make reference to those who are 'clinically vulnerable' and 'clinically extremely vulnerable’ people. Those individuals who are classed as clinically extremely vulnerable are being advised to continue shielding themselves for some time to come yet and the Government [...]

Following some disturbing reports about how disabled people are being treated during the COVID-19 pandemic, a disabled rights charity has called for the NHS to develop new guidelines to help protect them… While many people are making the most of being in lockdown, spending time as a family, starting up a new hobby, many disabled [...]

One in four disabled people believe they have lost out on a job offer due to their disability. And a fear of discrimination prevents disabled people from telling employers about their condition, according to the latest research from the disability charity Scope. The charity’s chief executive said the report should be “a wake-up call for [...]

Personal assistants for the disabled and housebound often travel to and from their homes in the EU between weekly shifts. How does the coronavirus outbreak affect this arrangement, and how can both parties be protected? Scroll down for the latest updates... Many of the PA’s (carers) on PA Pool’s register come from countries within the [...]