Brimblecombe, Nicola

A large proportion of long-term care for people with disabilities and/or long-term health conditions is provided by unpaid carers, including young people, with potential impacts on their education, employment and health. Supporting carers is a focus of long-term care practice and policy in many countries. A key part of this support in England is through provision of services to the person with care needs (often called 'replacement' care). We aimed to explore the role of replacement care services in supporting young adult carers' health, education, and employment.

The Care Act 2014 amended legislation relating to government responsibilities for adults with care needs. It set out new statutory responsibilities for the support of family or informal carers. As part of a study investigating the impact of the Care Act 2014 on family carers in England, we undertook a contextual literature review, focusing on parliamentary debates available online from Hansard. We describe the content of debates seeking to amend the law relating to carers and aspirations for the proposed reforms.

In the context of rising need for long‐term care, reconciling unpaid care and carers’ employment is becoming an important social issue. In England, there is increasing policy emphasis on paid services for the person cared for, sometimes known as ‘replacement care’, to support working carers. Previous research has found an association between ‘replacement care’ and carers’ employment. However, more information is needed on potential causal connections between services and carers’ employment.

Reconciliation of unpaid care and employment is an increasingly important societal, economic and policy issue, both in the UK and internationally. Previous research shows the effectiveness of formal social care services in enabling carers to remain in employment. Using quantitative and qualitative data collected from carers and the person they care for in 2013 and 2015, during a period of cuts to adult social care in England, we explore barriers experienced to receipt of social care services.

In the context of global population ageing, the reconciliation of employment and unpaid caring is becoming an important social issue. The estimation of the public expenditure costs of carers leaving employment is a valuable measure that is of considerable interest to policy makers. In 2012, the Personal Social Services Research Unit estimated that the public expenditure costs of unpaid carers leaving employment in England were approximately £1.3 billion a year, based on the costs of Carer's Allowance and lost tax revenues on forgone incomes.