As Carers Week continues with its theme of Building Carer Friendly Communities, Nick Baird, Chair of Carers UK, reflects on the vital role that supportive communities play in helping unpaid carers feel recognised, connected and supported. In his blog, Nick explores how community support can take many forms, from local groups and healthcare settings to educational institutions and workplaces, and why no carer should have to face the challenges of caring alone.
The 5.8m unpaid carers in the UK do extraordinary work, not just for the vulnerable family member, friend or neighbour they care for, but for wider society. The support they provide is worth around £184bn, and is equivalent to a second NHS. If they didn’t do what they do, our already overburdened NHS and social care system would collapse.
But unpaid carers too often try to do what they do alone for a variety of reasons: not wanting to tell their employer for fear of risking their job, seeing caring as a family responsibility which they should be able to manage without burdening others, focusing on the needs of their loved ones and neglecting their own. Caring can be hard and it can be lonely. It can be easier and less isolating if supported by a carer friendly community.
These can take many forms. They can be found in local communities – sometimes specific carers organisations, at other times local organisations that recognise and adapt to the particular needs of carers and give them opportunities to be connected, sometimes sports clubs, faith groups or groups focussed on other common interests. In my own area, we have the wonderful Kew Neighbourhood Association whose volunteers take older local neighbours living on their own to medical appointments, provide companionship and help with shopping and gardening. I had the pleasure of talking to their members last week about Carers UK’s latest activities and hearing about the great community contribution they make.
Carer friendly communities can be in education or health settings. Those schools, colleges and universities which help identify young and young adult carers and adapt to their particular needs. GP practices, pharmacies or health services which raise awareness among their staff to help identify and connect carers to support. As, under its ten year plan, the NHS moves more treatment away from hospital settings to care in the community, this will be even more important.
Carers UK membership itself represents a community through activities like Care for a Cuppa, which offer opportunities to meet other carers, share experiences, and ask questions. We get great feedback from carers about how this helps them feel less alone. And, when I attend our annual Members’ Conference, the principal feeling I get is one of community, whether it is the stories I hear from volunteers about their work with local community groups, the feeling of mutual support and not being alone you get through every conversation in the margins, the feeling of our collective power as nearly 50,000 members making us ‘the voice of carers’ able to influence key decision makers on carers’ issues.
Another place you can experience community support is in the workplace. All employees are entitled to five days of carer’s leave, albeit unpaid. In some of the most carer-friendly workplaces, employers will go beyond that in numbers of days or by making it paid leave. They will ensure flexible working arrangements to enable carers to juggle work and care. They will have carers’ passports, so a carer moving to a new role within the organisation does not have to re-explain to a new manager their flexibility needs. They will have strong carers’ networks where you can go for advice and mutual support. I experienced all this at Centrica, one of the leading carer-friendly employers. And through our Employers for Carers programme, I’ve heard so many good examples like the property agency where one of the teams was made up exclusively of women with caring responsibilities. They covered for each other’s caring responsibilities and became the top team in the company for a number of years.
No carer should feel alone or unsupported. The creation of carer-supporting communities is so important.
Nick Baird, Chair of Carers UK