9 guides, written to be useful rather than found.
No gated downloads, no email address required, no thin pages written for a search engine. If a guide does not tell you something you did not know, it should not exist.
Arranging and funding your own care
Start here if you have been told about a Direct Payment or a Personal Health Budget, or you are trying to work out what your options are.
- Direct Payments explained What a Direct Payment is, who decides whether you get one, what it can be used for and what you become responsible for. 9 min read
- Personal Health Budgets explained How NHS personal health budgets differ from social care Direct Payments, and the three ways they can be held. 7 min read
- Can a family member be paid to provide care? The question we are asked most. The honest answer is "sometimes", and this explains what it depends on. 6 min read
- A Personal Assistant or a care provider? A straight comparison of employing someone yourself against commissioning a registered provider. 7 min read
Employing a Personal Assistant
The practical detail of being an employer — which is what a Direct Payment usually makes you, whether or not anyone said so at the time.
- What is a Personal Assistant? What the role actually involves, how it differs from agency care, and what makes a PA arrangement work. 6 min read
- Employing a Personal Assistant Contracts, pay, holiday, sickness, pensions, insurance and records — the duties that come with being an employer. 11 min read
- Direct Payment payroll explained PAYE, National Insurance, payslips, pension duties and why payroll is the thing people most often get wrong. 8 min read
For organisations and professionals
Written for care providers using agency staff or recruiting, and for the people doing the work.
General information, not advice about your situation.
These guides explain how things normally work. They are not legal, financial or tax advice, and they cannot account for the specifics of your own arrangement.
Rules differ between local authorities and NHS bodies, and they change. Where a guide describes something that affects your funding, your employment duties or your tax position, check the current position with your council, the relevant NHS body, or a suitably qualified adviser before acting on it.
Decisions about eligibility, assessed needs and funding are made by your local authority or the relevant NHS body — never by Oakline.
Cannot find what you need?
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Most people find one conversation more useful than an afternoon of research, because your situation has details no guide can cover.