Thanks for starting this thread Chris. I just wanted to let you know that we've been printing our 'Looking after someone' guide for carers for several years and recently distributed over 12,000 copies to around 2,500 GP surgeries across the country. 'Looking after someone' is an introductory guide f...

Thanks Chris for highlighting this issue relating to Direct Payments. I've passed it onto Carers UK's Policy and Public Affairs team and will let you know if we can provide any further clarification on this. As we don't have time to read every post made on the forum, we may miss some requests for fe...

Hi Karen I've received a response from our helpline to say that they responded to you yesterday morning. Hopefully you've received this but let us know if not. At our staff meeting this morning we were informed that response rates to people contacting the helpline by email have now reduced to 5-6 da...

Hello Karen

Due to the volume of emails we are currently receiving from carers, unfortunately it is taking up to 10 days to receive a response from our helpline.

I will however let them know that you have posted on the forum and are keen to receive a quick response.

Michael

I'm sorry I've taken my eye of this thread. We set it up in early January to gather evidence on how the pressures on the NHS were affecting carers during the winter. I asked for responses to be emailed to our media email address and did highlight the these to our Policy and Public Affairs team who w...

Thanks for this suggestion Chris and sorry I missed your original post on this. As you say, in the past year our Chief Executive Heléna Herklots and Chairman David Grayson have both done Q&A sessions on the forum. I think it's a good suggestion to have a guest from outside Carers UK doing a Q&A sess...

Hello all Thanks for your contributions to this thread and sorry for my delayed response - I was organising and giving talks at several Carers Week events last week. I'm pleased to let you know that our telephone helpline is now open again on Mondays and Tuesdays between 10am and 4pm - 0808 808 7777...

Hello Chris - the report you've provided the link for was just produced for Carers Week. A more detailed State of Caring report will be communicated widely in the second week of July.

Hope this helps

Michael

Sorry to hear about the recent problems on the forum. I thought it had been behaving quite well recently and it must have been frustrating to have all the error messages. I'll let the IT support know on Monday.

Carers UK today welcomed the publication of the cross Government Carers Action Plan for England saying that it provided some positive short term measures to support carers, but that carers would be disappointed that it did not go further to recommend or deliver any additional financial support for c...