Care crisis worst for family carers
Laura Graham, writer of our regular Carer’s Voice column, looks at the crisis faced by family carers
“Hospital wards are overcrowded, a million people are not getting the care they need, and family members, usually women, are having to give up work to care for loved ones. Every day that the Prime Minister fails to act, this crisis gets worse. Will she finally come clean and provide local authorities with the funding they need to fund social care properly, so that our often elderly and vulnerable people can be treated with the support and dignity that they deserve in a civilised society?
Jeremy Corbyn – Prime Ministers Questions – 8th February 2017
Budgetary sticking plaster for social care
The new Chancellor’s first budget happened at the beginning of March and provided an additional £2 billion for social care. Estimates of the amount needed to actually address the current crisis in social care range from £3 billion to £8 billion, so this new money might plug a few gaps but is nowhere near the investment required.
Furthermore, the New Economics Foundation stated that about £115 million (29 pence in every pound) of this sticking-plaster money will go straight to the shareholders of the big five care provider chains. Without any cap in place on investor’s dividends, the current Government is again using the public purse to line the pockets of their puppet-masters.
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Social care crisis throws more responsibility onto unpaid carers
A recent Panorama programme, (aired on BBC1 on 20th March), highlighted the crisis in community care, with over 100 local authorities having their home care contracts returned as the private care companies hired to support vulnerable people in their homes are unable to deliver the much-needed care for the funding provided. Even when they pay just the minimum wage on zero hours contracts.
Mr Corbyn is correct. It is us, the families (for people who have them) or friends, who are picking up the slack in the current crisis. We are plugging the gaps in the NHS, in the care sector, and in the community services.
Yet were we, the unpaid carers, mentioned in the budget? No. Not a whisper.
It’s hardly surprising when you consider that the biggest charity claiming to represent carers issued a statement a few years ago following a budget, thanking the Government for not cutting the woefully insufficient Carers Allowance of just over £60 per week. The said charity also receives quite substantial funding from the Government so may well be dancing to the tune of the piper who pays them, effectively stealing the angry voices of the millions of carers.
There are an estimated 6.5 million carers in the UK, struggling to make ends meet, desperately needing – and deserving – a decent amount of money to live on.
Last week saw me back at Westminster once again for the APPG on Carers
I attended the most recent All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Carers last week. Chaired by the former Community Health and Care Minister, Alistair Burt MP, this meeting looked at what carers want to see in the soon to be published Carers’ Strategy.
Two carers were selected by Carers UK (who perform the Secretariat function to the APPG), to speak about their experiences of being a carer, Brenda who cares for her Mother, and Paul a carer for his young son and wife (Paul is Carers UK’s “Carer of the Year”).
Brenda highlighted struggles with accessing information and sign-posting for carers, and the lack of consistency across GP surgeries in their support of carers.
Paul described his experience of trying to secure a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim which took about 20 hours of form filling and an appearance in Court before the PIP was awarded. He said, and every carer would agree, that there is a constant, exhausting battle to get everything that our carees need for a basic existence.
Paul highlighted that the DWP were unhelpful, that he felt that he was suspected of trying to cheat the system and that the process had left him in debt from simply buying the basics. We know that Paul’s story is by no means unique, but is a common scenario shamefully played out across the UK every single day.
Government needs to do more for unpaid carers
At the meeting, David Mowat MP, the new Minister for Communities Health and Care, gave his thoughts on the Carers’ Strategy. He admitted that the Government had some way to go with caring for carers and making systems work for people.
He said that there was yet to be any assessment of the impact of Brexit on carers, or indeed on the social care system. He said that the system “could not cope without informal carers”.
On the consultation of the Carers’ Strategy, he said that there had been over 6,000 responses, with 85% of those responses from carers.
Alistair Burt acknowledged that a theme of a lack of information and the fight and struggle to get what carers needed had been reflected in the consultation. However, David Mowat stated that the strategy would be “cost neutral”, as he believes, “it’s not about money”.
I’m not sure how he hopes to achieve anything positive for carers without any additional investment and it is disappointing that he seriously expects the plight of carers to improve without consideration of the financial impact of being a carer.
However, this comes from an MP who voted for the bedroom tax and for cuts to disabled peoples’ benefits, so why should we surprised that he believes he can get away with a strategy without any additional finance?
That said, Baroness Pitkeathley highlighted how much carers contribute to the country, (an estimated £152 billion a year in savings), saying that there are both “moral and economic arguments” in supporting carers.
Are family carers a “Territorial Army” for the NHS?
Mimms Davies MP, who has been a carer for her mother, thought that carers should be considered as a “reserve army, similar to the Territorial Army” who support the work of the NHS.
I disagree. Unlike unpaid carers, the Territorial Army are trained in their role. They have a life outside of their reservist role. When called upon to act, they are provided with all that they need in order to be effective in their role and to protect themselves from harm. Mostly, they are called upon to support the work of the army.
Carers differ as we are the front-line fire-fighters and we are being let down by the NHS; we are being let down by the social care system; we are being let down by those in professions such as social workers, civil servants at the DWP, charities who claim to represent us, and the local authorities who have largely ignored the toothless Care Act.
Mostly, we are being let down by the politicians who pat us on the backs with one hand whilst imposing their punishing austerity cuts with the other and prefer to keep us poor rather than acknowledge that we are currently being exploited.
The Carers’ Strategy is due for publication by June. Even if it is a Rolls Royce model of a carer strategy, if there isn’t an accompanying strategy to raise awareness of its existence amongst those who need to know, I doubt its value in improving our lives as carers. It will most likely become yet another strategy left sitting on a shelf.
I challenge the government to prove me wrong.
Laura Graham is an independent researcher/writer/consultant working on strategy and policy development in the fields of addiction recovery, mental health and carer’s issues. She is the founder of Cure the NHS-Lambeth and is passionate about improving patients’ experiences of NHS care.
3 Replies to “Care crisis worst for family carers”
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Many carers are saving this government into the millions and yet we are treated with disrespect. For a great many years I have seen my husband going from hard educated 18hr 7day worker and after over 30 yrs our life savings have gone. I just don’t know when this terrible nightmare will end. We was put on the street with living apart so we could get a roof over our heads and yet as a carer many times running towards the room my husband was staying I would find him having seizures with mess that he was so spaced out he was desiderated. A number of times we pleaded for help my husband was found one morning with a stroke due to no help. As a carer I managed to find us a place to live that we was together it was the amount of complex issues and unadapted place my husband could not move from his wheelchair and slept on the floor. We lived in a dismal damp cold room when I asked for a heater the landlord said don’t cause trouble or you out. Daily I had to hand wash my husband, dress, feed, keep calm while his average 18 seizures daily 5 in a month Grand mal. This was very mauling and worrying and he ended up with pneumonia. When I asked for accommodation at the council they just said we was not a priority. My husband with brain decease severely blind deaf speech hip down paralysed and sleeping on the floor. As a carer I had to go further afield I felt I let my husband down going over how life was a hard worker to this. Even I was struggling with bowel cancer removal which as effected me. I managed to get accommodation that was much better and warm. The struggles was beginning to effect me as a full time carer it was grinding me down every day. Taking my husband on 18hr round trip on train to see a specialised Professor who sees my husband 2 or 3 times a month. My stomach felt it had been ripped each time with abuse of the same certain people on the train saying terrible abuse. After keep cleaning up is poorly they say chuck him off. As a carer If only they knew the struggles and worries and money worries important of all my husband. He knows and I know he as lost the will with how the physical side is so tiring day and night . When ever I here of further cuts on disability and housing concerns of a place we need to adapt for his needs. We will never be separated in sickness and in health and this government should look at those words and help the carer not punish us we lost all. a well educated husband but the system is that bad now I hate to think in the next 5 years For me and my husband a message to those who could have helped but failed us in sickness we get no help what we should get why because he his physical disabled and now internal. If we have a minister who has a good heart please help us the beating and hurt of cuts I can’t take no more I’m now desperate.
I don’t think the Government have any idea of what a Carer’s life entails. I have cared for my son for 32 years and had to deal with a huge deterioration in his condition over that time. I am committed to caring for him but resent the continual fight for everything, from the CHC funding he was entitled to which took over 6 years to be finalised to getting a suitable wheelchair and cushion within an acceptable time. I spend time most days doing my “paperwork” such as staff rotas, timesheets, ordering supplies from various sources, making sure my son has the medication he needs, arranging and staying in for servicing on the ventilator and other equipment he uses and then there’s the endless form-filling amongst other things, never mind providing the complex medical care he needs and trying to run a home at the same time. One of the latest issues is getting a bath installed rather than the wet room we have been offered which is totally unsuitable for my son’s needs. I find it all exasperating. As a friend who has a daughter with disabilities around the same age as my son said to me recently “you really would think that things would be easier 32 years on rather than harder”- this sums my feelings up completely. While I am happy to spend my life caring for my son I feel very bitter that the time I spend doing everything I have listed and more to ensure his needs are met means that my life is passing me by.
Thank you for providing a tiny insight into your life, Pauline. I can’t really imagine how difficult these 32 years have been for you. As you say, the opportunities for living your own life are few and far between. Some appreciation and support would, I’m sure, be welcome.