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This policy briefing is designed for professionals to share some initial insight from our work with Sport England. Further research on carers and inactivity including best practice examples and recommendations will be released in a report later in 2020.

This government-funded and independently evaluated project, which ran from 2015-2017, looks at what works to support carers to remain or return to the workplace. The Carers in Employment (CiE) project took place in nine local authorities, who were encouraged to develop local solutions to support carers to remain in or return to work; work involving employers was found to be a central to the project’s success.

Since 2002, thanks to extensive lobbying and representation by the family carers movement, there has been a formal state-endorsed approach to quantifying the number of individuals in the Republic of Ireland who are providing unpaid care to a relative or friend. Initially, the Census of Population provided this data every five years. More recently a number of other large-scale surveys have been undertaken in an attempt to capture the prevalence of family caring in Ireland.

The number of older people with care or support needs is on the rise across the UNECE region. While there are efforts to expand formal long-term care services to respond to this growing demand, informal care forms the backbone of long-term care (LTC) provision across the UNECE region. There is diversity in the way long-term care provision is organised and financed across the region as well as with regard to the status, recognition and support provided to informal carers.

The report finds that 65% of UK adults can expect to care unpaid for a loved one in their lifetime. The findings released in this report add crucial new data. Past studies have often relied on ‘snapshot’ data (which capture a moment in time), or research that shows what caring means for individuals but that is not representative of the whole population. Our new findings are from the highest quality UK surveys, based on data collected over decades from large representative samples of people regularly asked about caring and other aspects of their lives.

This report shows the that majority of unpaid carers are unable to take sufficient breaks and also highlights an unfair and unequal provision of carers’ breaks services across England. The report is based on the results of a survey of over 1,000 carers in the UK and a freedom of information request to local authorities and clinical commissioning groups across England. Only 8 per cent of carers responding to the survey felt they had been able to take sufficient breaks.

Findings from an investigation into the available evidence of strategies for employment retention of people who care, the triggers to labour market exit for carers and the barriers to re-engagement carers may face. 

Carers UK carried out an online survey between March and May 2019. A total of 8,069 carers and former carers responded to the survey – we have only included responses from the 7,525 people who are currently providing care in this report. Compared to the carer population as a whole, respondents to this survey were more likely to be female and caring for a high number of hours every week. Of respondents to the survey:

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges facing people juggling work with care and to explore how employers can develop a workplace culture that supports them.

One in seven UK employees is caring for an older, sick or disabled family member or friend who cannot manage without their support. Currently 600 carers leave work every day, a figure which is not sustainable given the challenges to UK productivity.

Supporting carers in the workplace is an issue which cannot be ignored:

This briefing provides an overview of findings from research led by Prof. Moreau that looks at the relationship between care and academia for different groups in Higher Education (HE) in England. The most recent publication is an SRHE report that explores experiences of senior academic staff who are caregivers, with previous research projects looking at other academics, including Early Career Researchers, and students. The research reports are listed in the references section overleaf if you would like to read about this subject in more detail.