This report provides an interim update on the reach and impact of the three-year Carers Active Campaign being run by Carers UK, with funding from Sport England. It is intended to provide learning and insights that can be used to inform the delivery of the campaign throughout its final year (July 2023 to June 2024), and to support discussions about how best to embed and sustain this work beyond the end of the current funding period.

The Carers Active campaign is a three-year, multi-faceted programme of work that aims to improve the physical and mental health of unpaid carers through becoming more active, and to influence wider system change that enables carers to be supported to improve their wellbeing and social connectedness. This is being done through a combination of online carer facing work (including online information and resources for carers, dedicated social media channels, and monthly online exercise sessions) and influencing work across the wider system (including targeted work with national and local organisations that can influence practice and facilitate access to physical activity opportunities for unpaid carers, and sharing of evidence and best practice).

Existing evidence shows that unpaid carers are much more likely to be inactive when compared to the wider population and, due to their caring commitments, can face significant barriers in relation to being physically active. These include a lack of time, financial constraints, or a lack of confidence due to the constant physical and emotional stress of their caring role.

In the UK, around two thirds (65%) of adults will provide care for someone in their adult life and there is growing evidence that unpaid carers have, on average, much lower levels of personal wellbeing compared to the wider population, and much higher levels of loneliness and social isolation. Research undertaken by Carers UK as part of phase one of the Carers Active campaign (prior to this current three-year period) found that increased physical activity among unpaid carers can lead to decreased loneliness, increased life satisfaction and happiness, and decreased anxiety and stress. The research also found that the adoption of a behaviour change model (in particular the COM-B model for behaviour change – see Section 3 of this report) could provide a useful framework for shaping the design of the Carers Active campaign and inform the delivery of campaign activities.