£255m ($503m) to Improve Lives of Carers for Sick and Elderly

By Martin Beckford, Daily Telegraph

June 10, 2008

United Kingdom

A £255million plan to improve the lives of carers will help them take more time off, ensure they stay healthy and stop children taking on too much support for their parents.

The 10-year New Deal for Carers has been launched amid growing fears that Britain's ageing population and cuts to council services will see more and more people forced to provide unpaid care for spouses, friends and family members.

It is estimated that more than six million people in Britain are already carers, 175,000 of them children and 70 per cent of them women.

But campaigners said they were "bitterly disappointed" that benefits for carers - which currently work out at £1.39 an hour - are not being raised under the new plan.

Announcing the plan, the health minister, Ivan Lewis, said: "In a society where an increasing number of us are caring for ageing parents or sick and disabled relatives, it is right that we recognise carers are at the heart of 21st century families and communities.

"In the next decade elder care will be the new child care and it is essential our policies properly meet the scale of the challenge."

The plan will see £150m invested in short breaks for carers so they can take a break from their duties and get someone else to cover for them.

Carers will be helped to stay in their jobs, as currently three out of five who have to look after relatives give up on their careers.

Annual health checks will be introduced to ensure care providers are not becoming too physically or emotionally drained by their work, while GPs will receive extra training to recognise the effects on carers' health and a support helpline for carers will be set up.

In addition, £6 million will be set aside to prevent young people who look after their parents from taking on an "inappropriate" level of responsibility.

However two leading support organisations said they feared carers would continue to be seen as a cheap alternative to NHS or council-provided care as the Carers Allowance is not being raised from £48.65 a week.

In a joint statement, the heads of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Caring for Carers said: "Carers will be bitterly disappointed that Government is not taking immediate action to rectify the low level of Carers Allowance or the difficulties in claiming it."

Meanwhile Saga has announced it is to arrange dozens of free holidays for carers to give them time off from their responsibilities.

Anyone who is over 50, has worked as a carer for more than a year and who has not had a holiday for more than a year can apply online at www.saga.co.uk/health/carers

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