Latest news with #unpaidcarers
BBC News
5 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Unpaid carers not a burden on employers, says Sheffield mum
A woman who gave up her job to look after her autistic child has urged employers to be more accommodating and open-minded towards unpaid Dew, from Sheffield, said she had to quit her full time position in 2014, two years after the birth of her working again part-time she said she wanted to "challenge the misconception that a carer is going to be a burden on the workplace".She spoke as new research by the University of Sheffield suggested there were more than five million unpaid carers in England and Wales. Ms Dew said she had hoped to "pick her career up again" sooner, but her son's needs became more demanding over said she claimed Universal Credit to "top up" her income, but it "barely" covered their needs."There's no recognition that I'm doing the work that someone else isn't doing - it's unpaid and unrecognised work," she said."I don't begrudge my children, but it would be really great to have a recognition that it's more than your average parent and I've missed out on earning as much as I potentially could be." 'Fantastic employees' According to the university's Centre for Care unpaid carers are providing more hours of care than ever said the number of carers who provided 50 hours of unpaid care per week had increased from 24% to 30% between 2011 and 2021 - equivalent to £162bn of care a part of Carers Week, the centre launched a digital dashboard to compare data on unpaid carers collected by the Office for National Statistics in England and Dew said she would like to see "more flexibility in the workplace" for carers and a statutory right to paid carer's leave, having previously had to take unpaid leave she "couldn't afford".She added carers are "often fantastic employees"."We have so much experience from juggling all kinds of different situations, and we can often be excellent at problem solving and time management," she said.A government spokesperson said: "We recognise the immense contribution of carers who selflessly dedicate their time to supporting others."We want families to receive the support they deserve which is why we have increased the Carer's Allowance earnings threshold by around an additional £2,000 a year – the biggest rise since it was introduced in 1976."We have also launched an independent review into social care, which will include exploring the needs of unpaid carers who provide vital care and support." Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds or catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Health
- BBC News
Call for change for 'isolated' unpaid Cambridgeshire carers
Urgent change is needed to prioritise "unsupported, isolated and overlooked" unpaid carers as they struggle with growing challenges in their lives, according to a charity Together, based in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, has gathered first-hand accounts from people it supports across the county and revealed widespread difficulty in seeing a GP, money worries, and carers' wellbeing sacrificed as they look after loved ones with disabilities or long-term conditions."Thousands of unpaid carers across our region are doing extraordinary things, yet they feel neglected, taken for granted and ignored by government and decision-makers," said chief executive officer Miriam Martin. "Better investment in carers' welfare is not only a moral imperative – but a financially sound strategy, saving billions for the NHS and adult social care systems."The Carers Speak Out report has been released to mark Carers Week, which begins on Monday. Based on contributions to its online platform, Caring Together found escalating financial pressures, driven by changes to benefits such as the winter fuel payment, rising energy costs, and the overall cost of living. Many carers had been forced to reduce working hours or give up work entirely, at the expense of their financial stability and personal wellbeing. 'Self-care is a priority' People also shared the emotional and physical toll of caring, with many suffering emotional distress as they watch a family member become increasingly unwell, and struggle to get them the help they carer wrote of her mum who had dementia: "It's a struggle keeping a confused lady safe and calm. "It's heartbreaking."Another carer, Jo, lives in Cambridgeshire and has previously shared her experience of looking after her mother, who has Alzheimer's."It's very difficult when you start caring because you want to put their needs above yours but you have to realise that if you don't prioritise your mental health and wellbeing you will not be able to do the job of caring," she said."It has taken me three and a half years to realise my self-care is a priority."It's more tiring than you think it will ever be and you can't do it on your own, you need other people to help and the forums and support groups out there like Caring Together can help a lot."The charity is calling on GP surgeries to recognise and prioritise unpaid carers and the people they care for, and for MPs to advocate for thousands of their constituents in the same is also urging employers to become carer-friendly, with the support of the charity, which would enable more people to stay in Department for Health and Social Care has been approached for comment. Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The cost of caring for a loved one
It's Carers' Week, when we're encouraged to recognise the effort put in by unpaid carers looking after their loved ones. As more people live longer and need more care, it should also be a chance to consider what we'd do if we found ourselves in this position, and someone we love needed care. You might want to step in and help, so it's worth understanding the potential costs — from the extras you'd need at home to the cost of any lost income. In many cases, the whole family will need to have a frank conversation about how to support the person offering care, as well as the person needing it. If your family member needs professional care, the question of costs becomes even more pressing. On average, you'll pay about £50,000 a year for residential care and £66,000 for a nursing home, but the averages hide some big costs, and plenty of people pay well over £100,000 a year. You may be able to get some help from the state, but there's a process you need to go through first. It starts with a "needs assessment", done by your local authority, who will work out what care the person needs. Read more: How much does it cost to become a driver in the UK? Next you go through a financial assessment, which looks at the assets of the person needing care. If they're getting care at home, or they're in a care home temporarily, this assessment won't include the value of their own home. If they're going into a care home permanently, it may include their home, unless someone from specific groups also lives there. This includes a partner, any of their children under the age of 18, or a relative who is disabled or over the age of 60. In England, if they have assets of less than £14,250, the council may pay for care — although it will also take their income into account. If they have between £14,250 and £23,250, they will have to contribute to the cost of care, but if they have assets over £23,250, they'll need to foot the entire bill. If your loved one has complex medical needs, they should be assessed for NHS Continuing Healthcare. This can pay for all their care in some cases, but don't assume they'll qualify. It's not enough to have caring needs around the clock, they'll have to have very high medical needs too, requiring regular intervention from medical experts and professionals. If you end up needing to pay for care for someone, there are a few benefits that will help. If they are over state pension age, they could get the attendance allowance — or pension age disability in Scotland. However, this will barely scratch the surface of costs. It means you may need to speak to anyone in your life who might need care, to see what preparations they've put in place. A piece of research we did a while ago found that fewer than half of people thought their loved ones could pay for care from their savings. It means you should consider their pension too. A guaranteed monthly pension income will go towards the cost of care. If they're using pension drawdown, they may have money in their pension pot that can be used too. For younger people, this often makes sense as a way to save for your own care needs, especially if you're saving into a workplace pension and your employer is helping to build the pot. Read more: What is the Pension Investment Review? However, the value of the property will often need to be used. Some people will rent the family home out to cover fees, although this is risky because rental income isn't guaranteed, and will be depleted by maintenance and repairs. You can consider equity release to free up some of the value in the property, but this is expensive. There will be a set up cost, and usually any interest on the loan will roll up, and needs to repaid when the property is sold. There's also the option of a deferred payment arrangement with the local council, which is a bit like equity release, but run by the council and slightly less expensive. But for many people, the most sensible option ends up being selling up. You might pay fees from the lump sum as you go along, but it's worth considering an immediate needs care annuity instead. These pay a fixed amount to the care home every month for the rest of their life, and tend to cover the gap between pension income and the cost of care. Talking to your loved ones about care, and how they'd pay for it, is difficult, but it's a far easier conversation well in advance, when they have time to make a plan. It's much more stressful to try to discuss this at the point they already need care and are starting to panic about how they're going to pay for more: How to tell if you're rich Should people keep working until later in life? How to get your children to move outError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Support for Carers
There are just under 6 million unpaid carers in the UK, and there could be many more beyond that figure. A carer is anyone who looks after a family member, partner or friend who cannot cope without their support due to illness, disability, mental health issues or ageing. Recognising yourself as a carer is important not only because you're finally starting to give yourself some credit for the amazing work you're doing, but it also opens the door to support, advice, and financial help that you may not realise you needed or had access useful information about the resources available for carers, click on the below links:For the NHS page, click here, the government page, click here, external. For advice from Carers UK, click here, advice from Age UK, click here, NHS advice for young carers, click here, important for carers to look after themselves and their own health too. For more information on how to do this, click here, is also technology available to ease the physical pressure of caring for someone, click here, external. Dr Kas provided some advice on how you can help someone who is currently caring for a loved one:Listen - Often one of the most important ways that we can help someone is by just listening. It is important for carers to offload their emotional stresses, and just being there to listen can be a great ask, just do - Often being a carer involves tasks including cleaning, cooking, or just sitting and having a conversation with the person they care for. Asking them if they need a hand is a perfectly well-intended gesture, but carers can be selfless. Make some food and bring it round, turn up at the house (at a reasonable time!), and offer to help with the cleaning. Even if it's something small you can do once per week, it can make a huge to run errands - Errands can be time-consuming, so you could offer to go to the supermarket for them or organise an online food Care - Encourage your family or friends who are carers to take some respite care regularly. Let them know that they have a support network to help share the work.
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Magnificent, yet passed over, targeted, fined – family carers are the hidden face of the care crisis
The word 'care' sits in a strange place in UK politics, somehow combining an increasing sense of urgency with a maddening and very British vagueness. Most of us know that there is a worsening care crisis. The reasons, we are told, are to do with demographics – more old people, put bluntly – and the seemingly eternal lack of money, or governments willing to spend enough on the kind of care most politicians fixate on: the sort that revolves around either residential settings or home visits, done by the anonymous mass of people we call 'care workers'. This category of human being is now in the news as never before: a lot of them tend to come from abroad, something that Westminster has now decided is intolerable. What a mess this issue is, and how many other matters the debate about it omits – not least the care needs of hundreds of thousands of adults who are learning disabled. But by far the biggest gap in our understanding centres on about 7 million unpaid carers, whose lives are explored in a new book. Strangely, it has been written by a frontline British politician; stranger still, the best bits are among the most compelling, moving pieces of political prose I have read in a very long time. The author of Why I Care: And Why Care Matters is the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey. Its first third focuses on his own life story: his experience of looking after the mother he lost to cancer when he was still in his teens, and the life he and his wife, Emily – and their daughter, Ellie – share with his son, John, who was born with physical and intellectual disabilities. Like all parents, Davey experiences joy and worry, but at intense extremes. As the parent of a child with special educational needs, I recognise his deep fears about the future that awaits his son after his parents have gone: 'No one's going to love him, and hold him, like Emily and I do.' And just about everything he says is full of a mixture of frustration and bafflement I completely relate to, mostly focused on our systems of government and politics, and the archaic workings of what remains of the welfare state. Pretty much by definition, what Davey calls family carers lead pressured, often sleepless, overburdened lives. Large numbers of them have to cope with mental health problems. More than 1 million are reckoned to live in poverty. Attempts to calculate the monetary worth of what carers do, he says, have put the aggregate figure at about the same level as the UK's annual spend on the NHS. But how often do we hear about any of this? Family care was part of the pre-political lives of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner; it was also there in David Cameron's story. But what it demands of policymakers still seems too awkward: in a political culture that rarely sees issues as much more than debates about budgets, the needs of people who look after their close relatives seem too complex and messy to really grapple with. There is, moreover, a problem with Westminster's prevailing conceptions about what makes life worthwhile: as politicians constantly describe the voters they worry about as 'working people' who make up 'hard-working families', it's pretty obvious who such thinking excludes. As a result, omissions and oversights pile up. The UK has no system of paid leave for family carers: one study Davey quotes suggests that 40% of people who provide high-level family care have had to give up work completely. Huge injustices are woven into the lives of young carers – who have to start seeing to the needs of siblings and parents at pitifully young ages – and how little the education system makes allowances for what they have to do at home. As I read Davey's book, Private Eye magazine gave this year's Paul Foot award for investigative journalism to my Guardian colleagues Josh Halliday and Patrick Butler, for their work on a mind-boggling scandal: the story of how hundreds of people who received carer's allowance (which is £83.30 a week) were prosecuted for unwittingly breaking cruel earnings rules. Everything came down to a key facet of the benefits system that remains in place: the fact that earning a penny over a weekly threshold of £151 – now raised to £196 – meant that the entirety of someone's carer's allowance was summarily withdrawn; and if the relevant systems didn't pick up any accidental exceeding of the earnings limit, 'overpayments' could fester on for months, until people whose lives were already loaded with pressures and stresses were suddenly hit with impossible demands for payback. The government has announced an overhaul aimed at spotting overpayments more quickly, but all this is surely the ultimate example of the institutionalised callousness displayed towards family carers: not just the miserly levels of benefits they receive, but the way the system seems to cast them as people prone to lie and cheat (witness one of many stark recent headlines: 'Mother of autistic boy left with £10,000 debt after breaching DWP rules by £1.92 a week'). The way officialdom treats any combination of work and care, moreover, is reflected in rules about education: if you study for less than 21 hours a week, you remain eligible for carer's allowance – but any more time spent on formal learning means you lose the benefit completely. And now there is another level of cruelty. The government's plans to cut down millions of people's entitlements to the personal independence payment will have knock-on effects for carers, depriving an estimated 150,000 people of either carer's allowance or the carer element of universal credit which means that many households will be hit twice over. Plainly, this is more proof of how devalued carers are. There may be one or two rays of light. Unpaid care was largely missing from most of the PR blurb that launched the government's independent inquiry into adult social care, but Louise Casey – the cross-bench peer leading its work – nonetheless made a point of beginning the process with conversations that involved family carers. But the surrounding political context remains grim: Westminster's musings about care still seem to myopically revolve around older people having to sell their houses to pay for places in homes, and whether a country that clearly needs as many care workers as possible should make recruiting them even more difficult. Towards the end of his book, Davey asks a handful of questions about very different subjects. 'What would happen if we totted up unpaid carer hours and paid them the minimum wage?' he wonders. 'What would happen if we looked at families whose real crisis is poor and unaffordable housing and fixed that first? What would happen if we took the concept of a good childhood – with a right to play, a right to education, a right to be carefree – and applied it to the thousands of child carers we know exist?' I have a couple more. As our society rapidly ages, what will happen when the majority of us start to experience life as family carers, and have to confront the fact that our responsibilities to some of our loved ones can no longer be entirely palmed off on other people? And what will that mean for an established model of politics and economics that holds that, unless we are in paid employment, we can be ignored? These will be two of the central questions of the next 10 years, and when they finally hit us, they will change everything. Davey, to his credit, seems to know that. Why do so many other politicians avert their eyes? John Harris is a Guardian columnist
