Make caring visible, valued and supported

Carers Week - June 6 -12 2022

A carer is someone, who gives care and support to a family member, partner or friend who needs help due to their illness, disability, frailty, a mental health problem or an addiction and cannot cope without their support.

Carers Week is an annual campaign which raises awareness and highlights the challenges that carers’ experience. The theme this year is Make caring, visible, valued and supported. Officially, there are 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities in the UK, a figure which will certainly increase once the 2021 census figures become available.

I have been a carer for over 30 years and supported others in various capacities during that time. Despite attempts over the years, to raise awareness and highlight the challenges carers face, via legislations, policies etc, the true impact of caring is not fully acknowledged and the experiences of carers have not really changed for the better. The impact of caring can be easily underestimated or sidelined, for example, during the early days of the Covid pandemic, the role of unpaid carers was 'lost' as paid professionals were referred to as carers and so yet again, we must campaign to be “visible, valued and supported”.

For carers to be visible, valued and supported the top 5 things they need to know, especially when trying to access support from social care are:-

1. Carers have rights

According to the Care Act 2014 and the Care and support statutory guidance, carers are entitled to a service on an equal footing to the person they care for. This includes young carers, parent carers of children with disabilities and parents with disabilities. The law states that local authorities have a duty to assess carers. This means they have an obligation to do so. They must meet assessed needs. Therefore, even if the person they care for is not entitled to support, carers can be assessed for one, bearing in mind the provision of a service will be determined after the eligibility criteria is met.

2. Promoting "wellbeing" must be at the heart of all assessments

Determining wellbeing is based on the outcomes carers may have difficulty in achieving. The inability to achieve an outcome without support, is what is crucial here. An example of such an outcome is ’participation in work, training or volunteering‘. Carers should be clear during assessments (even though a thorough assessment should identify what these are) what their needs are. Therefore, carers should be able to differentiate between their needs and those of the person they care for. As carers, we tend to prioritise the needs of the person we care for and neglect our own, as both are sometimes intertwined.

3. Carers are entitled to a personal budget in their own right

Once eligiblity for support is established, this can be provided in the form of direct payments. It can be used to meet the outcomes the carer wants to achieve. It helps the carer in their caring role as well as maintaining their health and wellbeing. Direct payments can be used to pay for things like gym membership, taxi fares, driving lessons, laptops, counselling and driving lessons, this is not an exhaustive list and should be 'personal' to the carer. The Care and support statutory guidance (accessible online ) refers to examples of items carers can access using direct payments.

4. Carers need to know the difference between respite care and replacement care

Since the inception of the Care Act 2014, respite care is sometimes used interchangeably with replacement care which is provided to the cared for person. Respite care is provided to carers, to give them a break from caring. The cared for person is entitled to support to lead a ‘normal‘ a life as possible not a break or respite from it. The cost of replacement care is not the same as the carers personal budget even though sometimes, carers can agree to use some or all of it for this purpose.

However, this is not the automatic default position i.e. the carers personal budget is not the same as costs for replacement care. It is the cared for person who is in receipt of the service not the carer. Don’t forget, caring for another person (a loved one or not), is voluntary not obligatory and the carers' willingness and ability to care should have been established during the carers’ assessment. If a carer provides unpaid care to another and they need a break from the ‘free care’ they provide, which saves the government a lot of money, then the costs for replacement care should be part of the cared for person’s personal budget which should be factored in as part of their needs assessment.

5. Carers and financial assessments

Compared to health services, social care is not free ( to adults). This means that any adult assessed as needing care and support ‘can’ be financially assessed. I use the word ‘can’ because it is in the local authority's power not to. These days, local authorities do financially assess, which results in requests for contribution to the cost of support provided by social care. This applies to carers as well as those they care for. However, local authorities do not usually request financial contributions from carers. Various explanations for this include a recognition that it is in the interests of carers, or it’s an appreciation of the ‘free’ care they provide or could it be, that it will cost more, if carers walked away?

For detailed information about the above, please click on the references below.

Shirley Barber

I am a freelance consultant with 30 years experience working with carers and those they care for. I also have a LLM - Masters in social care law. I am passionate about empowering carers to successfully advocate for themselves and those they care for, in order to access what they are legally entitled to. I am also a carer for my adult son.

For more information about my work , please click on : www.appletreeconsultancy.org

References:

www.gov.uk/carers

Care and support statutory guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

www.carersuk.org

www.carers.org