Social care: new ‘sleep-in rate’ proposed for personal assistants in Sheffield
A new so-called “sleep-in rate” has been proposed for social carers who need to spend the night at their clients in Sheffield.
A document published ahead of next week’s (June 19) Sheffield City Council’s adult health and social care policy committee showed that there was a proposal to increase the “sleep-in rate”.
Sleep-in shifts are those where workers are required to sleep at the residence overnight with the possibility of waking to provide care up to three times a night or up to an hour’s worth of support.
According to the said document, the new “sleep-in rate” for individual employers to pay their personal assistants (PAs) will be set at £77.95 for an eight-hour shift.
In an appendix of the report, the authors added: “The original rate proposal was £71 during the year 2023/24 however direct payment for employing personal assistants increased by 9.79 per cent in April 2024.
“The new rate of £77.95 reflects this increase.”
The document notes that there is a difference between when hourly rates are paid for a waking night and when a sleeping night shift rate is paid.
A “waking night” is where the PA is expected to remain awake, alert and likely active during the night.
For a sleep-in night shift a carer is expected to sleep at the workplace for up to eight hours but might be required to be awake for the purpose of work no more than an hour in total, i.e. 20 minutes three times, during the eight-hour night shift, the report added.