The Spinal Cord Injury Association have launched a Counselling Service

This free service provides support to SCI people and members of their family with any issues affecting their mental health and well-being. These could be directly related to the current situation or more generally to aspects such as relationship difficulties, issues around SCI or other things that you don’t feel able to talk through with your family or friends.

If you'd like to access this service

Please click on the button below which will take you to the registration form on the SIA website. Or call the Support Line on 0800 980 0501. The line is open Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm. If you call outside of these hours, please leave a message and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.

Paragon Home Healthcare provides specialist live-in care and assistance to people who have sustained a spinal cord injury at any point throughout life. 

The impact of a spinal cord injury can be life-changing and we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to live with independence and fulfilment in their own homes and with access to high-quality specialist assistance or care.

Our live-in assistance is provided by carefully selected and highly-trained personal assistants (PAs) who live-in with you and are on-hand throughout the day, giving you the added reassurance of round-the-clock support. Our PAs are overseen by our nursing team who regularly monitor and review the care provision. We understand that our role is often to simply organise behind the scenes so our clients can continue to live fulfilling and independent lives. 

To enquire about Live-in care options call us on 020 3006 2802.

The importance of continuity and trust between carer and client cannot be underestimated.

As we are all aware, there is a Health and Social care crisis in the UK. Sadly, rather than making steps to improve the funding gap and vast numbers of vacancies, the newly announced points-based system post-brexit sets the scene for the current crisis to worsen.

Live-in care or care work itself is not as highly valued in society as it should be. Caring is a vocation which requires a special type of person with the unique skill set to build the trust needed and provide the care support required

Under the points-based system, all migrants including EU citizens will require permission in advance to come to the UK to work which will be assessed according to the points-based system. At present, Health and Social Care is not included in the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) shortage occupation list for ‘Skilled workers’.

Carers are extremely highly trained and skilled and look after clients who are incredibly vulnerable and in need.

Some clients have had life-changing injuries and are paralysed, requiring highly-skilled care from their carers. Some have complex and advanced Dementia and require support for every aspect of their lives from their carers

To provide this level of care, our carers have to be experienced, trained and assessed and it is incomprehensible that this level of care work is not deemed as ‘skilled’. Some of our carers are Nurses in their own country, but it costs so much for them to transfer their qualification in the UK that live-in care work is more suited to them and their families and ultimately our clients.

Our clients are reliant on their team of carers who know their needs and are trained to manage their health requirements. In addition the nature of care work is often intimate and clients must build trust in their carers to feel safe in their homes.

Changing of carers is completely life-changing to clients, it doesn’t matter if it’s one carer or several, they rely on that person and have developed a really strong relationship with them.

Our staff make a valuable contribution to our client's lives and the importance of continuity and trust between carer and client cannot be underestimated

According to the the points-based immigration system, EU carers will no longer be able to come to the UK to work freely after the 31st December 2020. This change is highly likely to result in worsening care staff shortages and may mean some of our care staff will have to go back to the EU unless they have settled or pre-settled status granted. Ultimately some of our clients may need to be informed that we will need to start planning to introduce new carers to them as they will lose their highly skilled and trusted carers.

“Paragon Home Healthcare does not think this is in our clients’, our staff or the wider Health and Social Care sector’s interest and and will be petitioning the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to include Health and Social Care in the 'shortage occupation list”

In the meantime, we would encourage all EU carers who can to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme to do so as this allows unrestricted rights to work. EU citizens living in the UK by 31 December 2020 are eligible to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme and will have until 30 June 2021 to make an application. 

To apply for the EU Settlement Scheme proof of the following is required:

• your identity

• your residence in the UK - to be eligible for settled status, you usually need to have lived in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man for at least 6 months in any 12 month period for 5 years in a row. If you’ve not lived here for 5 years in a row you may still be eligible for pre-settled status.

The link to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme is: here or use these links to download the EU Exit Document ID check app for your phone to start the process: 

• I Phone

• Android

Read more: The UK's points-based immigration system: policy statement

Paragon Home Healthcare is committed to shedding light on this matter in the interests of anyone who may be affected by this and the Health and Social Care Sector.