English

Dementia of the Alzheimer type and related disorders greatly impact not only on the lives of sufferers but also on their unpaid informal carers, who usually are spouses or children. Carers are more likely to suffer from stress, take prescribed medication and visit their physicians compared with non-carers (Burns and Rabins, 2000). Social isolation that can occur in caregiving may mean that carers may only come to the attention of formal support services when a crisis occurs and informal care arrangements break down (Wenger, 1994).

The agenda of involving service users and their carers more meaningfully in the development, delivery and evaluation of professional education in health is gaining in importance. The paper reports on a symposium3which presented three diverse initiatives, established within a school of nursing and midwifery in the United Kingdom. These represent different approaches and attempts to engage service users and in some instances carers more fully in professional education aimed at developing mental health practitioners.

This Viewpoint, written by Caroline Glendinning at the University of York and David Bell at the University of Stirling, draws on the experiences of other countries to argue that social care is a collective, welfare state responsibility rather than an individual, private responsibility.

Other key points include: 

• social care arrangements in many other countries are equal and universal: everyone is eligible regardless of wealth, and people with similar levels of disability receive care no matter where they live;

This article describes the range of medication-related activities that are undertaken by carers together with some examples of the types of problems that they experience. This background may assist pharmacists in developing services to support carers in their medicines management roles and thus contribute to government policy as outlined in its strategy for carers. 

The first part of the paper argues that the care relationship is crucial to securing care quality, which has implications for the way in which quality is achieved and measured. However, for more than twenty years, governments have emphasised the part that increasing market competition and, more recently, user choice of services can play in driving up the quality of care. The second part of the paper analyses the development of social care services for older people, from the reform of 1990 to the changes following the general election of 2010.

We have been working together to take forward The National Carers’ Strategy, published in 2008 alongside the promotion of more personalised support and sustained independence. This paper is the fourth in a sequence of short reviews designed to stimulate debate and improve support for carers. It links closely to Commissioning for Carers [2009]. The focus of this paper is to help us all to tackle the following question: How will you, carers, and people more generally know if you have improved outcomes for people who give and receive care and support? It is a question not easily answered.

This resource aims to provide practitioners working with children and families affected by ill health and disability with information, resources and links to help develop and implement best policy and practice for services to identify and support black and minority ethnic young carers and their families.

This site was originally funded by the Department of Health in order to provide an understanding of the needs of black and minority ethnic family carers and best practice support.