We have adopted the definition for carers used by all the organisations that form part of The Carers Trust/Princess Royal Trust for Carers Network, which describes a carer as:
“someone, who, without payment, provides help and support to a partner, child, relative, friend or neighbour, who could not manage without their help due to age, physical or mental illness, addiction or disability.”
A young carer is described as:
” child or young person under the age of 18 who has a significant role in looking after someone who is experiencing illness or disability, which would normally be undertaken by an adult.”
In this context, a carer should not be confused with a care-worker, or care assistant, who receives payment for looking after someone.
Carers come from all walks of life, all cultures and can be of any age. Many carers do not consider themselves to be a carer; they are just looking after a member of their family or a friend and doing what they think anyone else would do in the same situation. While some cope well with the role, others do not and failing to recognise that they are a carer can mean they miss out on the help and support that is available.
According to Carers’ Scotland, there are around 657,000 unpaid carers in this country, with 115,000 providing care for 50 or more hours per week. Three in five people will be carers at some point in their lives – seven in ten women and six in ten men – and 25% will be over the age of 60. Our ageing population and the policy of successive governments to deliver more care at home may see this figure increase further in years to come and it is anticipated that by 2037 the number of carers’ in Scotland will exceed 1 million.
Some carers have to give up paid work in order to care. Others struggle to combine paid work with their caring role. Employers and the employment services can be unaware of carers’ needs and sometimes lack the flexibility to make a combination of caring and paid work possible. Former carers have difficulty returning to the workplace for similar reasons.
Carers often feel sidelined by health and social services professionals, who sometimes fail to involve them in decisions about the person they care for. Many have been treated for stress-related conditions since they started caring and a large majority admit to feeling ill, anxious or exhausted. A staggering 95% regularly hide the fact that their health is suffering in order to continue with their caring responsibilities and one-fifth have said they ignored feeling ill “all the time.” Almost one in four carers frequently feels unable to cope with day to day caring due to the physical and emotional stresses of their caring role.
Two out of every three carers have often been unable to find an opportunity to visit their GP about their own health concerns, due to time constraints and a general lack of flexibility to leave the house to attend appointments. If a carer has to be admitted to hospital for treatment, it can be difficult to co-ordinate their admission and discharge with the provision of respite care for the person they look after. Well over half of carers have not had a chance to discuss their concerns about their own mental or physical health with anyone.
The Scottish Household Survey 2007-8 statistics indicated that there were 10,790 unpaid carers resident in Argyll and Bute and by translating this national data into a local picture of Helensburgh and Lomond, it is currently estimated that there may be over 3,400 unpaid carers in the area and, for many, this support is often provided at great cost to their own health, finances and wellbeing. At present the number of carers registered with us represents around 8% of this figure and the identification of the ‘hidden’ carers remains a priority for the organisation.