It’s Carers Rights Day!
To mark the national event Age Scotland have published a new report which outlines the bleak challenges unpaid carers face.
Today, Thursday 21st November, marks Carers Rights Day – an event that was created by Carers UK, a charity that supports unpaid family carers. This year’s theme is ‘Recognising your Rights’ which has been captured perfectly in Age Scotland’s new report.
Published this morning, the report – which can be found in full here – highlights that a vast number of unpaid carers across the country feel let down and severely under-supported.
To create the report Age Scotland’s Dementia Training team conducted different engagement sessions to better understand carers’ experiences and challenges. It was funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The findings from these sessions, revealed a troubling lack of progress on key issues raised by unpaid carers, for example recruiting concerns included insufficient access to information, inadequate post-diagnostic support and a lack of help available before crisis points.
During the engagement sessions one carer said: ‘Our lives have been turned upside down, but who’s looking after us?’.
To put this into context, the UK State of Caring 2024 survey found unpaid carers frequently find themselves struggling with living costs – 35% don’t feel confident they will be able to manage financially over the next 12 months. What’s more, 28% of carers are cutting back on essentials like food and heating, an increase of 25% in 2022.
With Age Scotland’s report findings in mind, the charity are now calling on the government to better support unpaid carers. Some of the recommendations include:
- Change the narrative of dementia to critical illness which deserves appropriate funding. This should include working with health and social care partners to offer regular check-ups for people living with dementia and their carers beyond the 12 months of post-diagnostic support to bring care in line with other incurable conditions.
- Ring-fence Carers Act Funding to ensure that all allocated funds for supporting the implementation of the Act are used for this purpose. This must include implementing financial reporting duties for local authorities and HSCPs to ensure accountability and transparency.
- Take urgent action to improve social security support for older unpaid carers by addressing the overlapping benefit rule between State Pension and the new Carer’s Support Payment. We support Carer’s Trust Scotland’s recommendations for change as outlined in their 2023 report.
Katherine Crawford, Age Scotland’s Chief Executive, said: ‘Unpaid carers are the backbone of our communities, providing crucial support to people living with dementia and saving billions for our economy. Yet they feel abandoned.
‘We cannot accept a system where carers’ lives are turned upside down with little to no support. We urgently need action to deliver on promises and ensure their rights are more than just words on a page,’ Katherine continued. ‘Unpaid carers have been calling for the same solutions for years, but progress has been painfully slow. We must stop kicking the can down the road and start treating this as a national priority. The people who dedicate their lives to caring for others deserve better.’
In related news:
