Persona/Intimate Care - Any HR/union people about?

[Joolsy]

This is a very sensitive issue but I really need some advice. I work in a college and recently had a student with cerebral palsy join. He is also confined to a wheelchair. He needs assistance in using the toilet. We've never been in this situation before. In our contract it states 'personal care' however we feel that anything to do with toiletting is 'intimate care'. Some of our team say they are very uncomfortable with the thought of having to do this. I had to assist a few days ago as there was noone else available and I felt very uneasy doing it, mostly for his safety as I was sure he was going to fall over. Any advice anyone? Thanks

He would need to have a care assistant with him, OP. It's a special role and not one that other staff should take on.

Thank you. I've just joined a union and my application is going through so unable to contact them at the moment. I'm pretty sure some of my colleagues will be contacting them though!

He needs to be accompanied by a carer.

No advice but am following with interest. I previously worked as a TA and regularly supported a student in a wheelchair. We had to assist with toileting the student in pairs as it required a complex transfer. I always felt uncomfortable doing this as I was quite young at the time and hadn't had any personal care jobs previously. None of the other TA team were bothered (or expressed that anyway) but I always thought the student should have had a care assistant.

Whoever is tasked to do his personal care should be given moving and handling training. He should also be assessed as care x1 person or x2 and it delivered as appropriate.

We've had manual handling training and personal care training, however, I do not feel our job description covers intimate training. It's a bit of a grey area as to exactly what 'personal care' entails. At our personal care training we were given a list of what personal and intimate care entails. All things to do with helping someone to use the toilet was listed under 'intimate'.

I've no idea about legal definitions but when I was in the care industry personal care referred to toileting.

I believe it is a little different when it's out of a care setting