Me and my colleagues/friends are carer's who have had some kind of experience with care agency work & have decided to take the "direct payments" path. The responsibilities of the job which you carry are greater, as you don't have an agency's staff base to share it with, such as the coordinator, supervisor and out of hours agents. I personally found I'd end up doing their workload aswell as squeezing in 15 bed calls a night, running round like a loony, for not a lot of money and little or no thanks.
I originally posted this as I had a lady in Marple who needed 4 calls a day/7 days a week. I couldn't take on the responsibility for the whole care package solely, unfortunately she has decided to stay with her agency, even though she is unhappy with them, she fears that I/we wouldn't be able to cope, leaving her to fend for herself.
Like I said previously, people are always contacting me asking if I have enough time for them & sometimes I have had to say no. I'm sure if I can create an efficient working team together we could accept all of these requests. Direct payments no: 0161 218 1953