Advocacy for carers

A carer is someone of any age whose life is restricted because they are looking after a friend, relative, partner or person who cannot manage without help, because of illness, age or a disability of any kind.

Someone who is paid to undertake their caring role is therefore not a carer, although some carers may be in receipt of Invalid Care Allowance or in full time employment.

Carers fall broadly into 3 categories:

• Adult carers - an adult caring for another adult such as a spouse, partner, friend or relative.
• Parent carers - an adult who cares for an ill or disabled child.
• Young carers - a child or young person who is carrying out significant caring tasks and assuming a level of responsibility for another person which would usually be taken by an adult. This may be a sibling or a parent.

Carers are a valuable resource and their contribution to community care far exceeds the combined efforts of statutory and voluntary agencies. The continued health and well being of carers is vital to the success of community care.

The impact of caring responsibilities on people's working lives and on their income cannot be ignored. Many carers give up work or reduce their hours of work to care. Many carers in paid work report an impact of their own physical and emotional health as a result of juggling a paid job with caring. Those carers who give up work to care, face the prospect of lost earnings, and the subsequent impact on savings and pensions, as well as the loss of skills in practice, and the disadvantage they might face in trying to return to work when caring ends.

Carers are also a source of important information as they are close to day to day problems and experience first hand services provided. They are therefore ideally placed to feedback vital information regarding the effectiveness and quality of existing services, and suggest ways of improvement.

Carers can also challenge assumptions and raise awareness of issues facing people living and caring at home - they are therefore well placed to influence planning and policies.

Working with and listening to carers will therefore enable all agencies to make more effective use of resources. If the services required are not provided, there may be short term savings, but there will most definitely be additional expenditure in the long term.

Legislation

The Children Act 1989 gives local authorities the duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and is therefore relevant both to young carers and parent carers of children with disabilities and special needs.

The Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995 built on previous legislation and gives carers the right to ask for their own assessment. Assessment is the key both to individual choice and provision of appropriate support and is also integral to the development of a systematic collation of carers' needs to support service planning. It is therefore vital to ensure that carers' needs are considered and recorded as part of any assessment. However, the right to assessment was qualified by two main factors:

• The carer must be providing "substantial care on a regular basis".
• The person care for must also have an assessment for community care.

The Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 now gives carers the right to an assessment even when the disabled person refuses an assessment. It also gives parents of children with disabilities the right to request an assessment and empowers local authorities to provide services.

Having listened to the carers view, the Local Authority must take into account the result of the carers assessment when deciding what services to provide to the person who is being care for.

It is clear that many carers are still not aware of their right to a separate assessment. However, Department of Health guidance clearly states that local authorities should offer carers the right to a separate, confidential interview i.e. it is not incumbent on the carer to ask.