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Taking as its starting point the establishment of the Standing Commission on Carers in 2007 and the launch of the National Strategy for Carers in 2008, this article explores who carers are and how demographic changes are likely to impact on carer numbers. It deduces that the need for care is likely to rise significantly in the near future and as such carer numbers will grow. It argues that future policy must take this, and the importance of carers themselves being supported, into account.

General medical practitioners (GPs) and members of the primary care team have a pivotal role in supporting unpaid carers in their caring role and helping them to maintain their own health and well-being. This paper investigates the difference that caregiving makes to individuals’ access to and use of GP and primary care services. It is based on longitudinal analysis of carers’ contacts with GPs, and a review of the literature including evaluations of measures to improve primary-care-based support for carers. Men increase their consultation rates with GPs when taking on a caring role.

Support for carers now has a higher profile following the introduction of the Carers' Act (2004). In this article, Gary Kitchen reports on a successful review his organisation, Get Heard, carried out of a support service to carers of people with dementia in Cheshire, and demonstrates how vital these services are.

An estimated 50,000 children in Britain today regularly take on the hard work and responsibility of caring for a relative who is ill or disabled. These ‘young carers’ were, until recently, a hidden and neglected group in society, unacknowledged and unsupported. There are now over 100 young carers projects throughout Britain, and the Government’s National Carers Strategy document outlines a series of commitments designed to improve young carers’ lives.

Aim The aims of this project were to implement guidance that sought to involve carers of older people in decision-making processes, and to promote practice development through work-based learning.

The present survey aimed to describe and compare the main needs and problems experienced by informal caregivers of Black Caribbean and White native-born patients in their last year of life. Out of the 106 Black Caribbean and 110 White patients identified as dying during the survey period, 50 interviews per ethnic group were conducted, a response rate of 47% and 45%. Out of these, 31 respondents representing Black Caribbean and 28 representing White dependants said that they bore the brunt of caregiving.

Fifty caregivers and 41 heart failure patients participated in a study examining the association of caregiver characteristics and the caregiving environment on caregiver burden. Using a cross-sectional design, caregivers were interviewed face-to-face using a caregiver characteristic/demographic tool designed for this study, the Centers for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale, the Caregiver Reaction Assessment questionnaire, and the New York Heart Association Functional Classification Guide to obtain the caregiver's perception of patient disease severity.

Suffolk's HSJ Award-nominated People Project aims to empower service users and carers. Participants attend workshops on subjects including getting heard. The project has secured a new round of funding to take it through to August 2006.

Our experience of partnership working on a Scottish project on service user and carer involvement in social work education has been a deeply politicising one. First-hand encounters with power enacted at various sites of service user and carer involvement across national, institutional and local university levels have demonstrated to us that 'partnership working that pushes at the orthodox structures of power is difficult' (Barnes et al., 2006, p. 434).