Carers Rights Day: Urgent Action needed to support unpaid carers
New report from Age Scotland outlines experiences and challenges of unpaid carers
Age Scotland is urging the Scottish Government to take decisive action to improve the support available to unpaid carers of people living with dementia in Scotland.
The Scottish charity for older people has published a detailed report on the experiences and challenges facing unpaid carers to coincide with Carers Rights Day, and has written to Neil Gray MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, and Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, to outline its findings and recommendations for the Scottish Government. They have called for systemic change to ensure carers’ rights are recognised and realised.
The report highlights that many of the carers the charity engaged with feel let down and unsupported.
Age Scotland’s Dementia Training team, who are expanding their work to support unpaid carers and people living with dementia, conducted a wide range of engagement sessions across Scotland to better understand carers' experiences and challenges, 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. Recurring concerns included insufficient access to information, inadequate post-diagnostic support, and a lack of help available before crisis points.
One carer described during the engagement sessions, “Our lives have been turned upside down, but who’s looking after us?”
This report builds on years of work by Age Scotland and its About Dementia team to amplify the voices of unpaid carers and bring their needs to the forefront of public policy. Age Scotland believe this report serves as a stark reminder of the pressing need for change to ensure that the rights of carers are upheld and their vital contributions recognised.
The report recommends that the Scottish Government should:
- Change the narrative of dementia to a critical illness which deserves appropriate, equitable and sustainable 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.
- Use the independent evaluation of post-diagnostic support, as an opportunity to drive meaningful change in how support is implemented and delivered. This must include ensuring that unpaid carers receive their own high-quality support following a diagnosis.
- 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.
- Introduce a Right to Care Breaks as part of the National Care Service (NCS) Bill. This must include a duty on Scottish Ministers to ensure sufficient funds are available to local authorities for the right to be met in practice.
- Commit to reviewing the implementation of Adult Carer Support Plans and implement actions to increase awareness, uptake and accountability for councils who are not meeting required standards.
Katherine Crawford, Age Scotland’s chief executive, has called for immediate measures to address the persistent issues carers face:
“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.
“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.”
ENDS
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