During the first four years of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, Carers Wales monitored the implementation for unpaid carers. All the reports can be found below.
Track The Act was put on pause in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Highlights from the initial set of results
Under the Act, local authorities must ensure that they have information, advice and assistance services for carers and clearly signpost these to carers.
- The percentage of carers who said they had received information on caring was above 50% in only one year (53% in 2017/18), by 2019-20 this had fallen to 38%.
- Only 42% of carers said they had received advice on caring in TTA 5. The highest this has been in any of the surveys was 45% in TTA 4 (2018-19).
Carers have a right to undertake a Carers Needs Assessment, and this should be proactively offered by local authorities.
- Despite this, the proportion of carers who said they had not had their needs assessed has been every time this question was asked, ranging from 54% of carers in TTA 3, increasing to 85% of carers in TTA 4 and TTA 5.
- A high and consistent % of carers said they had not had an assessment at any time since 2016. 73% said this in 2017-18, 69% in 2018-19 and 72% in 2019-20.
- Across TTA 3, TTA 4 and TTA 5, on average only 8% of carers said they had declined to have an assessment after being offered one.
Support
- A majority of carers said they were caring along without support across multiple years. 64% of carers said they did not receive any support to care in 2017/18, 57% said this was their situation in 2018/19 and this increased to 62% in 2019/20.
Track the Act: Review of findings 2016-2020
Read an overview of the findings of the four years of the original set of reports
Track The Act 2
Read the report for the second six months of the first year of the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act
Track The Act 1
Read the report on the first 6 months of the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act
* The corresponding Freedom of Information requests for local authorities and health boards will be available in January 2024.
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