Care Act for Carers: One year on

The Carers Trust has published their Care Act for carers: One year on report.

The report and appendices may be found here: https://carers.org/care-act-carers-one-year-commission

 The report showed that there is reason to be optimistic about the potential of the Act, particularly if national and local government, and the NHS, work together to invest in the support needed to ensure the legal rights of carers are fully introduced. This includes making sure that all social workers and assessors are appropriately trained, and able to reflect the wellbeing principle in assessments. For full recommendations, see p22 of the report.

The report also showed what needs to improve.

  • Too many carers were unaware of their rights.
  • Practitioners need to understand that a carer’s right to support is independent of the person they care for.
  • Young carers and parent carers need to be properly supported at transition and during assessment.
  • NHS and local authorities need to strengthen the way they work together too.
  • Local authorities need support to implement prevention, personalisation and market-shaping for carers.

We did not hear from enough non-White carers to know how the Care Act is working for all carers in society. We are concerned about other groups of carers, for example, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people who are also carers.

If you'd like to tweet about the report, please use hashtag #CareActCarers and our account is @CarersTrust