Rprt

Personalised support arrangements are central to English adult social care policy and practice. The underpinning aim of enhancing choice and control over individual support arrangements can be traced back several decades, through campaigns by working age disabled people to receive cash direct payments rather than services; In Control’s promotion of self-directed support for learning disabled adults; the piloting of individual budgets; and the mainstreaming of personal budgets across adult social care.

Results of the UK’s largest ever survey of people with Parkinson’s and carers

Around 6 million adults in Britain help and support family, partners or friends who are ill, frail or disabled. The care they provide is unpaid. They include over 1.5 million carers who devote at least 20 hours per week to their caring activities. However, most adults provide that level of care at some point in their lives. The UK, Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly Governments have adopted strategies that aim to support carers in their caring role and enable them to continue caring for as long as they wish to do so.

This guideline covers preventing, diagnosing, assessing and managing dementia in health and social care, and includes recommendations on Alzheimer’s disease. It aims to improve care for people with dementia by promoting accurate diagnosis and the most effective interventions, and improving the organisation of services.

This literature review is concerned with the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of support and services to informal carers of older people in England and Wales. It has been undertaken by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the request of the Audit Commission (the Commission). The review is divided into three parts. It begins with an introduction summarising key issues that need to be considered when looking at the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of services for informal carers.

The Carers in the Region profiles have been commissioned by the Department of Health to provide information about carers at the regional level for each of the 9 English regions. These profiles include data on the number and characteristics of carers in each region as well as information about carer health and well-being. This profile provides information covering the London region. In 2001 there were 606,861 carers in London, which is 9% of the region’s population.

Young carers doing more than 50 hours of care a week are five times more likely to report that their health is 'not good'. There are an estimated 700,000 young carers in the UK; people who are under 18 who help look after someone in their family, or a friend, who are ill, disabled or misuse drugs or alcohol. The report highlights recommendations based on discussions with young carers, sector leaders and young carers services in the Carers Trust network. 'Invisible and in distress: prioritising the mental health of England's young carers' found that while young carers frequently report that

There are 1.2 million people in England aged 65 and over who are providing unpaid care to a disabled, seriously ill or older relative or friend. If carers are to have healthy and fulfilling lives in older age, more must be done to ensure that there is adequate support in place from health and care services both for older carers and for the people they care for. 

Personalisation is now the driving agenda for adult social care and Putting People First recognises that increasing numbers of ordinary people will be called upon to contribute to care delivered in people’s own homes. Of the UK's six million carers, 1.3 million are already caring, unpaid, for over 50 hours a week. Carers have always wanted better outcomes for the people they care for. However, with many carers suffering poverty, ill health and isolation due to unsustainably heavy caring roles, they also want and deserve better outcomes for themselves.