Category: Carers

Best practice in the engagement and empowerment of families and carers affected by eating disorders

Beat Eating Disorders, July 2019

Guidelines that call for all healthcare providers to adopt eight best practice standards, encouraging them to:

  • 1. Have a policy that ensures optimum involvement of and support for all carers as soon as a loved one starts treatment.
  • 2. Train all service staff in the application of the policy and these standards with particular focus on the importance of carers as a resource for recovery.
  • 3. Provide all carers with useful and comprehensive information about eating disorders when their loved one receives a diagnosis.
  • 4. Offer all carers and siblings an assessment of their own needs when a loved one receives an eating disorder diagnosis, continue to monitor their wellbeing throughout the sufferer’s treatment and, where necessary, refer carers to specialist services.
  • 5. Offer all carers options for peer-to-peer support.
  • 6. Offer all carers opportunities to learn the necessary skills to provide optimum support for their loved ones.
  • 7. Inform and engage carers when a loved one faces a transition between services and ensure that effective communication between both services and carers takes place.
  • 8. Provide a mechanism by which carers’ input and feedback is sought and acted upon.

Click here to view the guideline.

State of Caring Survey 2019: A snapshot of unpaid care in the UK

Carers UK, July 2019

The State of Caring Survey is the UK’s most comprehensive research into the lives and experience of carers. This year over 7,500 current carers shared their experiences and helped inform our State of Caring 2019 report. Key findings include:

  • almost 2 in 5 (39%) carers saying that they are struggling to make ends meet 
  • over half of carers who are receiving Carer’s Allowance (53%) are struggling to make ends meet
  • shockingly, over two thirds of carers (68%) regularly use their own income or savings to pay for care or support services, equipment or products for the person they care for
  • 1 in 8 carers (12%) reported that they or those they support received less care or support services during the previous year due to a reduction in the amount of support from social services
  • 53% of carers said that they are not able to save for their retirement
  • almost two thirds of carers (64%) say that they have focussed on the care needs of the person they care for, and not on their own needs.

Click here to view the full report.

Caring alone: why Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young carers continue to struggle to access support

Barnardo’s, April 2019
This report finds that young Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic children who care for ill or disabled relatives are more likely than other young carers to be isolated from support services.  The concept of a young carer is unfamiliar to many BAME communities as helping your family and extended family is often expected and there is stigma within many BAME communities in acknowledging mental health and disability issues and in seeking support.  The report makes recommendations including ensuring that allpatients who don’t speak English should have access to a translator instead of relying on children to translate for their family.  The NHS should work with communities to tackle stigma around within BAME communities to reduce the stigma of mental illness, special needs and disability and improve access to services.
Click here to view the full report.

Juggling work and unpaid care: a growing issue

Carers UK, February 2019
The report finds that 2.6 million people in the UK have quit their job to care for a loved one who is older, disabled or seriously ill, with nearly half a million (468,000) leaving their job in the last two years alone.  The report findings also show that more people are caring than previously thought, with almost 5 million workers now juggling their paid job with caring – a dramatic rise compared with Census 2011 figures of 3 million.  The report recommends that employers support staff with caring responsibilities to stay in the workforce through flexible working arrangements and increased Carers’ leave.
Click here to view the full report.
 

Involving Patients and Carers in Quality Improvement Projects: A Practical Guide

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, January 2019
This guide explains how to involve patients and carers in Quality Improvement (QI) projects. The toolkit covers topics such as:

  • How to pay service users and carers
  • How to recruit service users and carers
  • How to run effective and inclusive meetings
  • How to induct service users and carers into a QI project meeting

Click here to view the guide.

Ask Listen Do: Making conversations count in health, social care and education: Tips for health, social care and education organisations and practitioners

NHS England, November 2018
This Ask Listen Do resource shares tips for health, social care and education organisations and practitioners with the aim of making feedback, concerns and complaints easier for people with a learning disability, autistic people, families and carers.
Click here to view the full report.

Carers action plan 2018 to 2020: supporting carers today

Department of Health and Social Care, September 2018
The plan sets out the cross-government programme of work to support carers over the next 2 years.  It is structured around the following themes:

  • services and systems that work for carers
  • employment and financial wellbeing
  • supporting young carers
  • recognising and supporting carers in the wider community and society
  • building research and evidence to improve outcomes for carers

Click here to view the full report.