Blog: Knowing your rights as a carer is key to accessing vital support

If you are caring for someone living with dementia, did you know that you have rights as a carer that are enshrined in law?

There are more than 90,000 people living with dementia in Scotland, and it’s estimated that one in three of us may care for someone with dementia at some point in our lives.

But there’s strong evidence that many carers are unaware of their rights, and this lack of knowledge may be a barrier in accessing vital support.

For example, some important rights to increase support for carers were introduced by the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, but a Coalition of Carers in Scotland survey published in 2019 showed that more than half of carers were unaware of the legislation.

Of those who were aware, only a minority had an understanding of what it involved. This leaves a large number of carers who don’t have essential information about what their rights they have, under the Act.

Of course there are many reasons why carers might not be up to speed on legislation – exhaustion, isolation or not knowing where to look for support.

However without this information, carers don’t get the support they need, they can miss out on benefit entitlement and in some cases they only get vital help once a crisis occurs.

The Age Scotland Dementia Training team offers free, accessible training for unpaid carers of people with dementia to ensure they have a greater understanding of their rights and how to access them.

We have created training about the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, hospital admissions and discharge and self-directed support, and we are developing a number of other training topics including Power of Attorney and welfare benefits.

How are we doing this?

We hope to resume face to face training when it’s safe to do so, but in the meantime we are offering online training via Zoom.

Our training, which is interactive and informal, offers carers the opportunity to contribute their own experiences of accessing their rights.

Feedback for our courses has been very positive with participants indicating they have found the sessions helpful, well-researched and informative.

In future, we hope to organise a regular group for carers to discuss their experiences of accessing their rights.

We are already using different delivery formats such as webinars (run quarterly in partnership with TiDE) and a self-study platform launched in February 2021 which carers can access in their own time and at their own pace.