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Why we should all be more Carer Aware this International Day of Care and Support

Published: 29/10/24 | Categories: Information & support, Author: Rob Simkins

29 October marks the UN’s International Day of Care and Support. Rob Simkins, Head of Policy and Public Affairs Wales at Carers Wales, tells us more.

CARE AND SUPPORT

The UN’s International Day of Care and Support, along with Carers Week and Carers Rights Day, are some of the key moments throughout the year to highlight the plight of many of Wales’s hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers.

Given the longstanding challenges facing health and social care settings in Wales and across the world, it’s not very surprising that unpaid care and the people providing it are often overlooked. This feeling of being overlooked won’t be a new feeling to people in Wales who are currently unpaid carers, or have been in the past.

According to the 2021 census there are over 310,000 unpaid carers in Wales, though we anticipate the actual number to be much higher. This is probably unsurprising, given that Carers Week 2024 research shows that we all have a 50% chance of becoming an unpaid carer by age 50. Unpaid carers save the Welsh economy over £10 billion per year – more than the entire NHS budget – but despite unpaid care reaching so many people and being so vital it still takes two years, on average, for someone to recognise themselves as an unpaid carer.

SHINING A LIGHT

I, and many of the unpaid carers I’m lucky enough to work closely with, could spend days identifying all of the issues facing the unpaid carers in Wales and various policy interventions which stand a good chance of making their lives better. But today I want to shine a light on carer awareness. As without a better awareness and understanding of unpaid care and the people providing it, policy interventions (no matter how well intentioned) won’t be worth the paper they’re posed on.

Earlier this year, Carers UK launched the This Counts as Care campaign, using some of the many examples of caring roles we’ve seen over the years, to help more people understand that the care and support they might be providing to loved ones counts as care. For many people, this may feel like part of the job of being a parent, partner, child, neighbour or family member.

We know that many unpaid carers across Wales feel able to manage their caring role alongside the rest of their lives, at least for a period. However, ensuring that as many people as possible are aware of what unpaid care is, and looks like, means that if and when caring roles change, as they so often do, unpaid carers know there is support available and will have a good idea of where to go to get that help.

That’s why, along with our good friends in Carers Trust Wales, we developed the Carer Aware project. Carer Aware co-produces resources to support health and social care professionals and carers, using the lived and professional experience of both groups. Crucially though, the project is funded to deliver training to health and social care professionals until March 2025, via the Sustainable Social Services Grant from Welsh Government.

CARER AWARE

Professionals working in health and social care settings will interface with unpaid carers who help to look after someone on a near-daily basis. Being able to identify those people as carers, help them to recognise that of themselves if they haven’t already, and signpost them to statutory support and community support where needed will make a huge difference to the length of time it takes carers to self-ID and access support.

The preventative agenda is critical for unpaid care, which in turn makes it critical to the continued viability of our health and social care system in Wales. Prevention is an area where the third sector does and will continue to play a critical role and as such we look forward to the continued development and enhancement of Carer Aware. Because it’s not just health and social care where we need to be better at spotting and supporting carers. Education establishments, pre and post-16, workplaces, communities, all of these are areas where carers will be, and in numbers.

So for the International Day of Care and Support 2024, I hope we can all recognise the importance of carer awareness and commit to making ourselves, our networks and our organisations more Carer Aware and fit for the future.

FIND OUT MORE

If you or your organisation would like any information or training on Carer Awareness, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Carers Wales or Carers Trust Wales and we’ll do our best to support.

If you’ve read the article and thought, ‘I sound like an unpaid carer’, then get in touch with Carers Wales for more information and advice – support exists and you are not alone.

For more on the health and care landscape in Wales, take a look at WCVA’s Health and Care Project.