Carers attending the first National Carers Summit on 8th November gave a loud and clear message to the Government that they expect the forthcoming National Carers Strategy to deliver real change that improves carers' lives. Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a special message to the Summit.

• Read the Prime Minister's message here.
  

Carers vigorously debated the key issues facing carers - support from health and social care, carer benefits, employment, transport and help to make adjustments when caring comes to an end.

• Listen to the debates here.

Historic time
Imelda Redmond, Chief Executive of Carers UK, told the audience that this was a historic time for the carers' movement, as carers and caring had risen to the top of the political agenda and opportunities such as the National Carers Strategy had to be seized. However, she also acknowledged there were tough decisions ahead. Although Carers UK is campaigning for more funding to support carers, decisions had to be made on how best to spend limited resources.

• Listen to an interview with Imelda Redmond here.

Hard choices
This challenge was illustrated by the debates on health and social care and carer benefits. On breaks, delegates were asked to vote on whether all carers should be guaranteed a minimum level of breaks, whether to increase spending to improve the quality of respite for the person being cared for, whether to end charging for respite for those who need it most or give carers more control over the type of breaks they receive. Just under half voted for more control over the type of breaks as their number one priority. On carer benefits, the majority of carers voted for all carers to have extra money. Carers' top priority for improving carer benefits was to scrap the overlapping benefit rule which denies carers over the age of retirement from receiving Carer's Allowance, closely followed by introducing different levels of benefits to reflect carers' different circumstances, such as caring for more than one person, the level of disability and the number of hours spent caring.

Ivan Lewis MP, Minister for Carers and Social Care told delegates that the Government would be judged on whether the National Carers Strategy made a real difference to carers' lives. He also called on carers' organisations to pressure the British Medical Association to make sure GPs were identifying and supporting carers.

• Listen to Ivan Lewis's speech here.

Anne McGuire MP, Minister at the Department of Work and Pensions spoke about the challenges of improving carer benefits. She highlighted that Carer's Allowance had been introduced by the Government in the 1970s as a token for the contribution made by carers. She fully acknowledged that times had changed and a National Carers Strategy group was working on proposals to reform carer benefits.

• Listen to Anne McGuire's speech here.

Carers' views
The day belonged to carers, as they made clear what changes would make a difference to their lives. There were several ways carers' views were captured. You can listen to the debates themselves here. You can see the results of how carers voted on their priorities here. We also interviewed some carers which you can listen to here. Carers were asked to post up their messages to the Government - examples are displayed here.

Way forward
The National Carers Summit followed on from another eight events held by Carers UK to find out carers' views to help shape the National Carers Strategy. Carers UK will be writing a report based on carers' contributions which will be sent to Gordon Brown and inform our work on the National Carers Strategy working groups.

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