Carers are being pushed further into exhaustion, poverty and despair by government neglect, survey says
I once stated that we thought this window-writing was by a child in care, but it could also have been drawn by an adult recipient of care – or it might have been by a carer instead.
Government neglect is pushing unpaid family carers into poverty and leaving many exhausted and fearful of the future, according to a survey from the Carers Trust.
The charity found that the majority of unpaid carers feel they are not getting enough support from the social care system, with only 12 per cent saying the support they receive is adequate to meet their needs:
Almost two thirds of unpaid carers taking part in the survey (64%) said they do not receive enough support. A further 24% responded that they weren’t sure whether they got enough support. Only 12% of respondents agreed that they were getting enough support from the social care system.
The survey also points at Government cuts to local authority funding as one of the main reasons as to why unpaid cares aren’t receiving enough help and support. According to the survey, almost two thirds of unpaid carers (64%) are now spending 50 hours or more per week caring for a family relative.
Carers Trust says this suggests that in just nine years the proportion of unpaid carers providing 50 hours’ care or more per week has almost tripled since the 2011 Census (23%).
This Writer was an unpaid carer for years, until This Site started to offer me a better living.
It is work that takes up as much time as a person can devote to it – and is often thankless, as the person who needs the care often has their own pain to accommodate and may be inconsiderate as a result.
This can lead to difficult decisions between earning and caring – and in many cases to mental illness as the pressures affect carers.
How typical of Tories that they are worsening these pressures.
Source: Government ‘neglect’ pushing unpaid carers into poverty, exhaustion and total despair
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I completely agree for Local Authorities (LAs) have been left short of funding over the 10 years of austerity cuts. While many LAs tried to shield Social Care from these cuts, inevitably this could not continue and Social Care had to take their sharing of their budget being cut. This at a time when caring needs were increasing, so LAs had to restrict who they provided social care for and this meant that only those with substantive care needs were being considered, so persons with moderate and below were not.
However, the care needs still were increasing which has resulted in social care being rationed, especially as safeguarding was the main priority and Safeguarding had to be funded.
COVID-19 has compounded the funding crisis and although the Government as provided some funding for COVID-19 issues, the funding is falling short.
Many, if not all LAs have a Social Care budget for both children and adults in deficit and a substantial deficit in more likely all LAs stretching into £millions.
Many Governments, both Conservative and, even Labour have promised to look into the funding crisis’s over the years, but to date none have and as each year goes by the crisis become more serious.
Even the Carers Allowance, https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance, falls way short of what is required and in no way covers the income lost by family carers caring for their loved relatives.
While this is a very serious situation, there are, also major problems in respect of paid carers, whose pay is abysmal for the responsibilities they undertake, but they also have poor working conditions and unsocial hours and much more, including, in some instances, poor quality of care being provided.
Unfortunately, Social Care has never been sufficiently funded, even prior to 1970, when LAs were made responsible for all Social Care, but not funded to do so.
Social Care is in dire need of substantial funding in all areas, which has prompted me to create the the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care
More information can be found at, https://1drv.ms/w/s!Aq2MsYduiazgoFyaia2t8f2QVkxd?e=rhW3SC, if required