Caring for Carers
This is Carers week. Clive Arnold, who has a regular blog on the Cumbria Newspaper "News and Star" site, has posted some very important points about the work done by those who care for family members and the help they are entitled to expect.
I think this country owes a huge debt to carers. As Clive rightly points out, if they didn't spend an enormous amount of time and effort caring for their loved ones, the state would have to do it at incredible expense.
Carers come in all shapes and sizes. In my own family several people devoted huge amounts of love, care and effort to looking after their parents or older siblings, sometimes up to the verge of their own old age or into it. Until I moved my office to Whitehaven a few days ago, I used to sit opposite a colleague down south who in addition to a full-time job was a registered carer for his disabled adult son. I could not avoid overhearing some of his telephone battles with petty officials in the fight to get decent support for himself and his son, or occasionally respite care so that he and his wife could have a break. It is shocking how difficult it can be for carers to get decent treatment, both for themselves and for those they look after.
We also need to do more to publicize what help is available and help carers to claim it. Carers UK estimates that carers miss out on £746 million in unclaimed benefits every year.
One of the most moving speeches I have ever heard was delivered about a year ago at a health consultation meeting in Whitehaven, by one of several carers who turned up to let the local NHS trust know how concerned they were about the impact of changes which had just been made to Windermere ward at West Cumberland Hospital. All too often governments, councils, and NHS trusts do not think about carers as they should when making changes in policy.
Now, in terms of what we should actually do to help carers, I'm going to give a three point reply: the first two are quotes from official Conservative statements, which address some of Clive’s questions, and which I agree with. The third is an answer from me to Clive’s question on the "overlapping rule" which the first two quotes do not directly deal with, and which is my own view but not necessarily Conservative party policy.
Official Conservative quote No 1: Recognizing and supporting the role of carers.
"We will explore means to support carers in their work, including through the tax and benefit system. In particular, the limited availability of respite care should be addressed, giving carers both rights and choices. We recognize the huge amount of support that informal carers provide and the huge burden that they shoulder. We recognize the obligation that society has to them for the contribution they make."
(Quoted from the recently published Conservative Disability Agenda)
Official Conservative quote No 2: from a briefing to Tory party workers on Carers Support Services
"Conservatives recognise the enormous contribution that Britain’s carers make to our society. We believe that they deserve the same opportunities in life that most of us take for granted – the chance to have a fulfilling career, to have a healthy life and to enjoy financial stability in old age.
Yet too often carers manage on a day-to-day basis until such time as a crisis hits and emergency help has to be found in often difficult and stressful circumstances. In those circumstances support is often fragmented and patchy, and the assessment of need is highly complex and bureaucratic. Patients have too little ownership of the management of their care, poor access to information and services, and an inability to influence the care they receive.
So a Conservative Government will seek to ensure that more people have access to respite care and short breaks when needed.
We will boost the vital role played by informal carers by expanding the provision of respite care so that more carers can continue to support loved-ones at home and, importantly, are able to remain in their own home.
Carers face an uncertain retirement as a result of a pensions system that penalises them. A Conservative Government will take action to ensure that carers can look forward to a more secure retirement by introducing a fairer pension which reflects the realities of life for carers.
We will introduce a flexible weekly credit which would not penalise carers for missing a proportion of the tax year.
We will give more people an opportunity to participate in the contributory system and prevent carers losing out on pension entitlement just because they need to take a long period away from employment by making it easier to make national insurance contributions retrospectively
In addition, our plans to lower the bar for state pension rights will give substantial numbers of carers and low-paid employees access to state pensions without having to pay national insurance contributions."
Third comment, from me, on clawing back of the carer's allowance.
This one represents my own personal view and not necessarily Conservative policy, though I hope that if the present government has not improved the present unsatisfactory state of affairs by the time of the next election this or something very like it will become our policy.
I don't think the present system whereby a whole range of benefits including Carers Allowance suddenly stop when people reach the age of 65 is sensible or reasonable, and it can cause a great deal of hardship. The alternative support available via the pensions credit is not a satisfactory system - it is too complicated and a third of those pensioners who are most in need, well over a million people, do not claim the pensions credit. Almost certainly the vastly complicated forms required have a lot to do with this. I do not know if anyone has estimated the number of people with disabilities or carers among those over 65 who don't claim what they are entitled to, but I strongly suspect that it will be a very significant proportion.
So I think it should be a major priority to take as many pensioners as possible, especially the infirm and their carers, out of means testing, and I would like to see a reversal of the present situation where many benefits stop at 65 as part of a strategy to achieve this.
I think this country owes a huge debt to carers. As Clive rightly points out, if they didn't spend an enormous amount of time and effort caring for their loved ones, the state would have to do it at incredible expense.
Carers come in all shapes and sizes. In my own family several people devoted huge amounts of love, care and effort to looking after their parents or older siblings, sometimes up to the verge of their own old age or into it. Until I moved my office to Whitehaven a few days ago, I used to sit opposite a colleague down south who in addition to a full-time job was a registered carer for his disabled adult son. I could not avoid overhearing some of his telephone battles with petty officials in the fight to get decent support for himself and his son, or occasionally respite care so that he and his wife could have a break. It is shocking how difficult it can be for carers to get decent treatment, both for themselves and for those they look after.
We also need to do more to publicize what help is available and help carers to claim it. Carers UK estimates that carers miss out on £746 million in unclaimed benefits every year.
One of the most moving speeches I have ever heard was delivered about a year ago at a health consultation meeting in Whitehaven, by one of several carers who turned up to let the local NHS trust know how concerned they were about the impact of changes which had just been made to Windermere ward at West Cumberland Hospital. All too often governments, councils, and NHS trusts do not think about carers as they should when making changes in policy.
Now, in terms of what we should actually do to help carers, I'm going to give a three point reply: the first two are quotes from official Conservative statements, which address some of Clive’s questions, and which I agree with. The third is an answer from me to Clive’s question on the "overlapping rule" which the first two quotes do not directly deal with, and which is my own view but not necessarily Conservative party policy.
Official Conservative quote No 1: Recognizing and supporting the role of carers.
"We will explore means to support carers in their work, including through the tax and benefit system. In particular, the limited availability of respite care should be addressed, giving carers both rights and choices. We recognize the huge amount of support that informal carers provide and the huge burden that they shoulder. We recognize the obligation that society has to them for the contribution they make."
(Quoted from the recently published Conservative Disability Agenda)
Official Conservative quote No 2: from a briefing to Tory party workers on Carers Support Services
"Conservatives recognise the enormous contribution that Britain’s carers make to our society. We believe that they deserve the same opportunities in life that most of us take for granted – the chance to have a fulfilling career, to have a healthy life and to enjoy financial stability in old age.
Yet too often carers manage on a day-to-day basis until such time as a crisis hits and emergency help has to be found in often difficult and stressful circumstances. In those circumstances support is often fragmented and patchy, and the assessment of need is highly complex and bureaucratic. Patients have too little ownership of the management of their care, poor access to information and services, and an inability to influence the care they receive.
So a Conservative Government will seek to ensure that more people have access to respite care and short breaks when needed.
We will boost the vital role played by informal carers by expanding the provision of respite care so that more carers can continue to support loved-ones at home and, importantly, are able to remain in their own home.
Carers face an uncertain retirement as a result of a pensions system that penalises them. A Conservative Government will take action to ensure that carers can look forward to a more secure retirement by introducing a fairer pension which reflects the realities of life for carers.
We will introduce a flexible weekly credit which would not penalise carers for missing a proportion of the tax year.
We will give more people an opportunity to participate in the contributory system and prevent carers losing out on pension entitlement just because they need to take a long period away from employment by making it easier to make national insurance contributions retrospectively
In addition, our plans to lower the bar for state pension rights will give substantial numbers of carers and low-paid employees access to state pensions without having to pay national insurance contributions."
Third comment, from me, on clawing back of the carer's allowance.
This one represents my own personal view and not necessarily Conservative policy, though I hope that if the present government has not improved the present unsatisfactory state of affairs by the time of the next election this or something very like it will become our policy.
I don't think the present system whereby a whole range of benefits including Carers Allowance suddenly stop when people reach the age of 65 is sensible or reasonable, and it can cause a great deal of hardship. The alternative support available via the pensions credit is not a satisfactory system - it is too complicated and a third of those pensioners who are most in need, well over a million people, do not claim the pensions credit. Almost certainly the vastly complicated forms required have a lot to do with this. I do not know if anyone has estimated the number of people with disabilities or carers among those over 65 who don't claim what they are entitled to, but I strongly suspect that it will be a very significant proportion.
So I think it should be a major priority to take as many pensioners as possible, especially the infirm and their carers, out of means testing, and I would like to see a reversal of the present situation where many benefits stop at 65 as part of a strategy to achieve this.
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