Choose a personal assistant in East Cheshire

Bringing someone into the house is a trust decision.

You are choosing who sits in the kitchen, who goes with you to an appointment, and who is there each week.

Welcome to Silverstar PA Care.

This episode is a short guide to choosing a personal assistant before you hire one.

I will cover three checks: the work you actually want done, the paperwork that should already be in place, and how the first visit should feel.

Silverstar PA Care is a personal assistant and companionship service in East Cheshire.

Jacqueline Silvester founded it.

The visit happens in the person's own house.

It is not a care home, and it is not nursing.

Start with the work, not a job title.

Write down what a normal week needs.

Company at home.

Getting up, dressing, and grooming.

A meal.

Shopping or a prescription collection.

A lift to an appointment.

An afternoon out.

Silverstar uses six kinds of support.

Companionship.

Home Help.

Errands and Shopping.

Appointments.

Social Outings.

Meal Preparation.

Home Help is the practical side: getting up, dressing, grooming, and the jobs that keep the house running.

Companionship is the time together: conversation, prompting a routine, and getting out.

Picture one two-hour morning.

The personal assistant arrives at the house.

They help with getting up, dressing, and grooming.

They prepare a meal.

They stay for conversation, or they prompt the next step in the routine.

A prescription collection can fit in the same visit.

An appointment or a social outing can be the plan instead, if that is what the person wants.

You choose the mix.

You do not have to use all six services on every visit.

If someone is living with dementia or Parkinson's, the visit can include company, prompting, and home help.

It is not clinical treatment.

The shortest visit is two hours.

That is long enough to settle in and finish what you agreed.

You keep the same personal assistant from one visit to the next.

Holidays or illness can be the exception.

You are not booking a different person every time.

The same person learns the morning, the kitchen, and the route to the shop.

A different face each week would start that learning again.

Ask any provider to say this plainly before you hire.

Who will come.

How long they stay.

What happens if that person is away.

Then check the paperwork.

Every personal assistant at Silverstar completes an Enhanced DBS check and holds the Care Certificate.

Each year they refresh safeguarding, prescribed medicine, and moving and handling.

Jacqueline Silvester oversees those standards.

Ask to see the same things wherever you look.

An Enhanced DBS check.

A Care Certificate.

Training that is still current.

Be exact about medicine.

Silverstar does not supply medicine.

A personal assistant can help a person take medicine a doctor has already prescribed.

They do not decide the dose.

They do not provide nursing or other clinical treatment.

The service is not registered with the Care Quality Commission.

If you need a nurse or a regulated clinic, that is a different service.

A clean certificate is not the same as a good match.

In the first conversation, ask how they handle a difficult morning.

Ask how they keep a private house private.

Listen for patience.

You should not have to pull the answers out.

The first meeting should be in the home, and it should be free.

At Silverstar that meeting is a home consultation.

You say what you want, what you need, and what you wish the week to look like.

The quote comes after that visit.

There is no hourly price on the website.

The personal assistant does not wear a uniform, at home or when you go out.

Time out should look like two people going about the day.

Take the week you wrote down into that meeting.

Read the tasks out loud.

Say which days you want.

If dementia or Parkinson's is part of life at home, say that too, so the plan stays with company, prompting, and home help.

The towns are Macclesfield, Prestbury, Alderley Edge, Bollington, Poynton, Wilmslow, and Knutsford.

The registered office is in Congleton.

That address is legal only.

Congleton is not a town the service visits.

Here are the three checks again.

Name the work, in plain tasks, for a two-hour visit with the same person.

Ask for an Enhanced DBS check, the Care Certificate, and training that is still current.

Meet in the home before you agree a price.

If this is the kind of support you want, use the link in the show notes.

That link books a free home consultation.

Thank you for listening.