Carers UK gathers hard evidence about what needs to change. We use this to influence health, social care, employment, social inclusion and other areas of government.
- Carers UK conducts surveys directly with carers about how caring impacts on their lives, whether policies make a real difference and to help us shape our campaign priorities.
- We work with research partners such as Leeds University to improve knowledge about who carers are and how their lives are affected.
- Carers UK sucessfully campaigned for a question about caring to be included in the 2001 census and through our research partners have conducted detailed analysis of the census data to reveal new insights into the patterns of caring.
- Carers UK' s research programme is helping gain a fuller understanding of how caring impacts on people's lives and find evidence based policy solutions which will help reduce poverty, ill health and social exclusion of carers.
Recent research
- Carers in Crisis.extreme hardship exists among the nation’s
carers as living costs rise and the economic crisis affects families.
(December 2008)
-
Time for a social contract? Hard
won recognition and rights over the last decade have not been strong
enough to transform most carers' lives. This report argues for a new
social contract for care addressing carers' health, economic and
financial security, social inclusion and equal rights. (October 2007)
- Whose rights are they anyway? examines why the Human Rights Act has not yet been of value to carers, but that it could be and points to evidence that in individual cases carers may face human rights violations which could be open to challenge in the courts.
Research in action : Valuing Carers, £87 billion - a case study
Carers UK recognised the publicity value in assessing how much the support carers provide is worth to society. The subsequent research, carried out by Carers UK in 1993 remains one of the most important ever for carers. It showed that carers were worth £34 billion a year to the state. No other study has been quoted as much by carers, organisations, policy makers and politicians and it set the scene for ensuring that carers are properly recognised. We updated the research in September 2007 with the help of University of Leeds. The figure now stands at £87 billion.
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