It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I thank all the Members who have taken the time to attend this incredibly important and timely debate.
It is no exaggeration to describe unpaid carers as the backbone of the social care system and of communities up and down the country. In caring for relatives and loved ones, their dedication ensures thousands of people living with disability or illness are able to live with dignity and respect. They are vital and their work is crucially important to society, but too often they are not treated with the decency and respect they deserve or given credit for their work, not just in caring for people but in benefiting wider society.
There are an estimated 11.5 million unpaid carers across the UK, with over 900,000 of them putting in the minimum 35 hours to receive the carer’s allowance of just £67.60 per week. It is a crying shame that their efforts are so poorly recognised. Meagre as it might be, the benefit is crucial in allowing carers to perform their vital service, which would simply not be possible otherwise. However, working outside those caring responsibilities not only brings home much-needed wages, but we know there are many benefits from keeping in touch with the workplace, including carers’ identities and self-esteem, and social engagement outside their full-time caring role.
Were carers not providing the care that they provide, and the state were forced to step in instead, the cost to the Treasury would be extremely high. The charity Carers UK estimates the economic value of unpaid care provided over the two years of the pandemic at more than £380 billion—that is more than the entire NHS budget over the same period. Given the vital importance of unpaid carers and the allowance that helps them do what they do, I was utterly appalled when my constituent, Mr Steve Spamer, wrote to me recently to explain the changes the Government will impose on him just a few weeks from now.
Steve is registered blind, and has been for many years. Not only does his wife provide round-the-clock care, but to make ends meet she works two jobs, up to the maximum hours permitted by the allowance’s earning threshold. She does six hours cleaning in the local pub and eight hours in the local shop, on top of providing full-time care. Working 14 hours at the national minimum wage rate comes to £124.74 per week, just under the current earnings threshold of £128.
Next month, the minimum wage will rise by just under 7% to £9.50 an hour. While this is not enough to address the cost of living crisis, an issue that I will come back to shortly, it is of course welcome. As a passionate believer in the minimum wage, I am glad to see it rise. The carer’s allowance will go up too, by approximately 3% to £69.70 per week. Again, that is a far cry from where it should be, in my view. Members across the House, especially Ministers in London, should have frank conversations with themselves about whether they could survive on that sum. None the less, we welcome the increase.
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before we move to the next speaker, I ask hon. Members to be mindful of how much interest there is in this important debate. If they can keep their contributions to around six minutes, I will not impose a formal time limit.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on securing this important debate. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone, but the toll on unpaid carers is particularly heavy, as we have just heard.
Carer’s allowance is the lowest benefit of its kind at just £67.60 a week. Many carers are in arrears, but cutting back on what is spent is not an option when the person being cared for relies on an electric ventilator, an electric wheelchair, pressure pads, hoists or a stairlift, or that person must be kept warm due to a medical condition. Other costs facing carers are also likely to be higher and difficult to reduce, such as transport costs to attend medical appointments or food bills due to dietary or nutritional requirements. Inflation is rising as much as 10% for low-income households because a greater proportion of their income is spent on those energy costs. However, the 3% uplift in carer’s allowance next month does not begin to match those spiralling costs of food and energy.
In a survey, Carers UK has reported that two thirds of carers are currently unable to meet their monthly costs and that is before all the spiralling increases. Furthermore, a quarter of the carers surveyed are already having to use foodbanks. That means the number of unpaid carers relying on foodbanks may be substantial, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East just said, there are 11 million unpaid carers.
Katy Styles is an unpaid carer who cares for her husband and mother. She is a campaigner for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She gave evidence this week to the House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee and said:
“It would be remiss of me not to mention carers’ finances, because that makes you invisible and impacts on absolutely everything. I went from being a full-time teacher to being a part-time teacher to accommodate my caring role”.
The reason I am participating in the debate is that I brought together an unpaid carers group that has been meeting over the past few months to talk about the current situation. The fact is, it is heart-rending to talk about the struggle that most of them are having. The pressure they are under is immense, and the pressure that they have been under as a result of covid has exacerbated the way in which their lives have been transformed by the altruistic act of caring for someone else.
The carers in the group are, basically, families looking after a child with a disability or a special need, or families looking after an elderly relative. What is also remarkable is the number of the children who look after others in their families. What came across in the group is that that act of caring has implications for the whole family: individuals have given up their careers to undertake caring, and siblings who have given up the opportunity of going to university to help the family out with care overall.
It is interesting that none of them asks for anything in return. They do not even ask for thanks. They just want to get by. They just want to be able to survive. To be frank, from the discussions I have been having with them, I do not think that some will survive this coming period. We call it the cost of living crisis glibly, but it is a crisis for this particular group of people in our society in a way that it is possibly not for others.
To run through some things that they would emphasise—points others have made—for example, the issue of higher energy costs is not just about heating; it is the energy that is needed to maintain basic equipment to enable the person people are caring for to survive, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said. Apart from the health-support devices and the special equipment, other issues raised were the transport costs to get to appointments—again, that can become very costly—and nutritional costs, in particular as inflation hits hard a number of nutritional inputs required for the person they are caring for.
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. We have Carers Week, when we celebrate and thank carers, coming up in June. Does he agree that there is no better time to look seriously at raising the carer’s allowance and making sure that we not only recognise carers with words but treat them decently?
I fully agree. There is a sense of urgency about this issue now, because what came out of the discussions that I have had with the carers group that I brought together is the stress that carers are under, and the mental health implications not only for themselves as individuals but for their whole family. We know that there are examples in the past of how such stress has caused a mental health problem that has led to suicide.
There is a need for urgent action now. We have gone beyond intellectual debates about this issue; we just need some action rapidly, given the fact that carers face these massive increases in prices, particularly around energy. And then effectively they face a cut—a 3.1% increase, as against inflation now, which ranges between 7% and 10%. That level of inflation comes in like a whirlwind for these particular families and we need urgent action now. Perhaps that action has not been considered effectively in the past, but it certainly needs to be considered now.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way. Does he also believe that it is incumbent on the state to view this matter through the prism of preventive spending? If we pile so much pressure on these carers, who are caring for some of the most vulnerable people, and then the carers themselves end up in mental health predicaments or poor health, the costs of that will be borne by the state anyway. So it is a false economy not to support them.
That is exactly the final point that I was going to make, because most of the people who I have talked to are at a tipping point, where they and their whole family can no longer survive on the level of income they have, given the pressure they are under.
What comes across time and again is that carers have to struggle: first of all for recognition; then for assessment of the person they are caring for; then for support services; and then for just a respite every now and again. For some of them, that struggle is becoming insurmountable. Then what happens? The person they are caring for is taken into care and the costs escalate beyond anything that we have seen so far. So there is a desperate need to resolve this matter.
I will just throw in one other point as well. The benefit that carers get is not an access benefit to other benefits. With regard to energy costs in particular, a small step would be access to winter fuel allowance and—to be frank—a doubling of that winter fuel allowance.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell.
We need our unpaid carers. Carers UK estimates that there were up to 13.6 million unpaid carers during the pandemic, providing care worth £530 million per day. However, carers have been left to fall into poverty by this Government. Carer’s allowance currently equates to £1.93 per hour, assuming a carer only does 35 hours of care, which they need to do in order to receive the allowance. Even with the 3.1% uplift, that figure will increase to only £1.99, which is still less than £2 per hour.
Carers have borne the brunt of the pandemic. In research by Carers UK, 81% of carers said they had to provide more care during the pandemic; 35% were providing more care because services were closed or not available during the pandemic; and 80% of them were caring for someone whose condition worsened during the pandemic.
This Government forgot unpaid carers during the pandemic, which is evidenced by the fact they initially did not include carers in the priority categories for vaccination. I will just point out that, having previously been an unpaid carer himself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) did a lot of work to ensure that that was rectified.
Unless someone has cared for somebody else, it is hard to know the day-to-day pressure of performing a caring role. It does not matter how much they love the person they are caring for; caring takes its toll. We know that the pandemic has taken its toll on everyone and we know the impact on mental health of lockdowns, uncertainty and constant worrying. For those in caring positions, it can be a million times worse. Caring can also be a very lonely role. All disabled people and all conditions are different. For some, caring means caring for a loved one who does not have the mental capacity, who cannot communicate and who potentially gets confused.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for securing this very important debate, and for his passionate speech—one that I very much agree with. At the last census in 2011, 24,188 people over the age of 16 were carers in Salford. Nationally, Carers UK estimates that there are now 11.5 million people across the UK who give unpaid support to someone who is elderly, seriously ill or disabled. It estimates that, by doing so, unpaid carers are saving the Government a whopping £193 billion a year.
Last year it was noted that there were only 900,000 full-time unpaid carers nationally who received support of any kind, in the form of carer’s allowance. At only £67.25 per week, it is the lowest benefit of its kind. There are so many more who are excluded from receiving carer’s allowance, including: carers in full-time education or studying for 21 hours or more a week; carers earning more than £128 per week, which is less than 15 hours a week on the national living wage; and carers who spend less than 35 hours per week on their caring responsibilities.
It is clear that even before the cost of living crisis, thousands of carers were facing extreme financial hardship. Indeed, a recent survey by Carers UK found that more than a third of those on carer’s allowance are struggling to make ends meet; many had been struggling for months, often relying on food banks to feed themselves and the people they care for. Now, as energy bills increase by up to 50%, inflation rises and the cost of day-to-day essentials skyrockets, there is a real worry that without urgent support from Government many carers and their families will simply be unable to cope. Those in receipt of the menial carer’s allowance have been awarded a 3.1% increase. However, as we know, inflation is set to reach at least 7.5%, so they face a real-terms benefit cut.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for securing this important debate. I begin by declaring an interest. I will be speaking from a place of personal experience, as someone who is a carer. Indeed, there are 13.6 million unpaid carers in the United Kingdom supporting family members and friends. Many of their stories go untold, as do their struggles. I know that some hon. Members have spoken about the struggles of the people they have come across, and how they have tried to cope with this.
I will talk a little bit about my situation. Effectively, over the past 10 years I have been a carer. First I was a carer to my mother, who passed away in 2017—during the course of the general election—and more recently I have been a carer to my brother, who has a number of chronic conditions. Trying to balance life—to balance working, family and caring—is very difficult. However, I am lucky enough to have a decent income. I am lucky because my work is flexible and I can rearrange appointments. If I had a nine-to-five job, I would not be able to look after my family members, and I would have to leave my job, as did the teacher, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), and that is not fair. We are the fourth or fifth richest country in the world. We should not have to be in this position and people should not have to do that.
Even though I am financially stable and have flexibility, even I get tired, as do others. For example, about eight weeks ago my brother telephoned me in the middle of the night, at 3 o’clock in the morning, to say that he had a massive pain in his arm. I called an ambulance and he was taken straight to Salford hospital. He had an MRI, was found to have a clot in his arm, and was operated on immediately. That same night I was with him, but the next morning was a Monday and I had to come down to Parliament. When we stay with family members for nights on end, in the morning we can hardly keep our eyes open and we take loads of paracetamol to try to get rid of the headache that we get from not having slept at night.
20 of 48 shown
The earnings threshold will rise by the same rate. The issue for Mr Spamer and his family, who will certainly not be alone, is that the rise in the minimum wage and in the earnings threshold simply do not match up, forcing them, and many others, into an impossible dilemma. The Minister might respond that Mrs Spamer could reduce her hours so that she does not exceed the earnings threshold. That is all well and good, but this is the real world, not a spreadsheet. She cannot work just one hour less; she would have to give up one of those jobs entirely. Even if that were the smaller job—at the pub, for example, at six hours a week—that is a loss of £57, nearly £200 a month. That is comparatively a fortune to the family, and the difference between having something to eat, putting grub in their tummies, and not turning on the central heating.
The only other option is to give up the carer’s allowance, because if the earnings threshold is exceeded by just £1, 100% of the benefit is removed. That is the harshest withdrawal rate in the entire welfare system. That is the choice, though it can hardly be called that, that the Spamers and thousands of other families now face, cut back by £200 or £280 a month. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, in the face of a devastating cost of living crisis, soaring inflation, sky-rocketing energy bills, and a Chancellor more interested in publicity stunts than putting money in the pockets of working people.
It is worth bearing in mind that the £20 universal credit uplift shamefully did not apply to those on legacy benefits, including carer’s allowance. People in this position have received even less support than others. The Minister knows all of this. I was grateful to have had the opportunity earlier today to speak to her briefly about what I wished to raise, so I know this will come as no surprise.
I also wrote to her six weeks ago, to raise the Spamers’ case. I had hoped that the discrepancy between the national minimum wage and the carer’s allowance earnings threshold rises was a simple, honest oversight, rather than a catastrophic, seemingly deliberate omission, affecting unpaid carers. Sadly, the reply I received confirmed that the Department for Work and Pensions was proceeding exactly as intended, and would only consider further changes to the earnings limit
“where they are warranted and affordable”.
The Minister needs to have a long, hard think about how those words sound to families up and down the country, frankly doing the work of heroes, caring for people who are incredibly ill, some who might be near death, and saving the country an absolute fortune. In recent years, consensus has been reached in this House and the country on the need, though not the method, for root and branch reform of the social care system. A conversation on how the carer’s allowance fits in to that picture is long overdue.
Mr Spamer and his family, and all the thousands of people like them, should not be subject to a drawn-out review and consultation. They are staring down the barrel of the gun in just a few weeks’ time. The bare minimum I ask of the Minister today, without fudges and caveats, is to fix this punishing anomaly. Match up the rates and do not punish those who have done absolutely nothing but good for their family and society.
She then went from being a part-time teacher to
“having to give up my job because it was not flexible enough. You have to be there in core hours. You have to be there during term time. If your husband has an issue or needs a medical appointment that is out of that time, you cannot support them.
I am on £67.60 a week now, having had £150 a day. It is a very different thing. I am lucky, because I actually get carer’s allowance. There are so many carers who are not supported with carer’s allowance. That has to change. It needs reform.”
There is a recognition of that need for extra support for unpaid carers in other parts of the UK. Unpaid carers in Scotland receive the carer’s allowance supplement, while in Wales it was recently announced by the Labour Government that unpaid carers would be given a £500 payment to recognise their commitment to caring during the pandemic. By contrast, unpaid carers in England are being left to get by with only a £2 a week increase in carer’s allowance. That miserly increase would be swallowed up, from this Friday, by paying £2.50 for a single lateral flow test just to keep the person they care for safe. On top of that come the soaring bills I have already mentioned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has talked about the mismatch between the increase in the national living wage and the carer’s allowance earnings threshold, leaving carers, as he said, with impossible choices and loss of income. We cannot continue to leave carers without proper support. That includes carer’s breaks. Funding for respite care has dried up and is no longer earmarked for breaks as it was up to 2010. Carers UK has estimated that 72% of carers have not had a break from caring during the pandemic. Three quarters of carers say they are exhausted and worn out from that caring during the pandemic. The Government’s plan in the social care White Paper for five days of unpaid leave—unpaid leave—to care is woefully insufficient. Once again in her evidence to the Lords Committee on Monday, Katy Styles said:
“I do not know any carer that has had a break. I have not had a break or one day off in eight years. Indeed, I had surgery 10 days ago for a major eye operation. I was in the theatre at 6.30 and back home caring at 9.30, because there is no support.”
Katy also highlighted how carers who are not identified as such do not get signposted or helped to access even the support that is available. She has been a full-time carer for 10 years, but has only received carer’s allowance for eight. She said:
“If you don’t identify then you’re not signposted to any support...I didn’t know that, I’ve missed out on benefits, Carer’s Allowance, for some years, I’ve missed out on carer’s assessments for years.”
In 2012, I brought in a private Member’s Bill on the identification of carers. That would have created a new duty on the NHS to identify carers and promote their health and wellbeing. The then Care Minister in the coalition Government did not support my Bill. When the carers action plan came along, it was not so ambitious; it proposed merely a system of quality markers so that GPs could demonstrate that they were good at identifying carers. Carers organisations know that proper identification of carers by the NHS would mean that we could support carers much more effectively. Carers such as Katy Styles would have been identified as carers more quickly, and signposted to benefits and support earlier, had my Bill been supported by the Government.
The carers action plan expired at the end of 2020. The Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member, has recommended a number of times that the Government publish a national carers strategy. An ambitious national strategy for carers backed up by funding is essential to tackle those problems of identification and support that I have talked about. I hope that the Minister will listen and understand the seriousness of the challenges facing unpaid carers, which have been outlined in this debate and will be more so by my colleagues. I hope that she will use the input and lived experience of carers, which were sent in when the Government consulted carers in 2016 to develop a national carers strategy—something they promised but never delivered.
I will finish with the words of one unpaid carer responding to a Carers UK survey this month, which highlights the situation that so many unpaid carers are in:
“It seems everything has increased in cost apart from the money we have to live on. It means that I don’t always have 3 meals a day now. We don’t always have the heating on. Why should someone who has a terminal illness not afford to have a warm home?”
It then comes down to what those carers receive. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) raised the issue of the contradiction between the earnings allowance and carer’s allowance. It is ludicrous—we all know that it is ludicrous—and it just needs resolving quickly. I do not understand what logic there is for arguing for anything other than reform on that issue. It comes down to the basic level of carer’s allowance, as far as I am concerned. We are inflicting a level of poverty on these people, who do so much work to assist our society overall.
When preparing for the debate, I spoke to my researcher—I am grateful to her for allowing me to share this—who recalled the experience that she and her mother had when caring for her father, who developed early and severe dementia a decade ago. She told me how his constant confusion and distress at not being able to make sense of his thoughts or communicate them worried the whole family. Much like a toddler, he would lash out, shout words that made no sense, and sometimes cause harm to the people and things around him. She said that they saw themselves as lucky—not only because he passed away quickly and was put out of his distressing circumstances, but because it happened long before the pandemic. She said that the confusion of the new rules would have simply been overwhelming for him, and that the isolation of lockdown without any respite would have left lasting damage to both her and her mother. This will not be the experience for all carers, but it will be the experience for many. They need not only our thanks but our support, and it must be tangible.
Lifting restrictions means that more disabled people are being required to continue shielding, because underlying health conditions have not gone away. It means that some people are simply not leaving their homes. It means they avoid seeing others or going to support services in the community. It means avoiding going into care homes for respite, and it means that people rely more heavily on the friends and family who care for them.
My party opposed the Government’s decision to scrap free lateral flow tests from this Friday, and although the Government have announced that some categories will be able to access testing, they do not include unpaid carers, who have been forgotten again. It is true that carers often share homes with the people for whom they care, so there is a risk of infection even if it is known that the carer has covid, but this is not always the case. Many carers provide full-time unpaid care to those outside their home, as reflected by the fact that people can apply for carer’s allowance even if they provide care to a friend outside their home, so I ask the Government to consider ensuring that unpaid carers have access to lateral flow tests.
I think that Members on the opposition side of the Chamber agree that £69.70 is not enough to live on. It is a real-terms cut to the carer’s allowance, and those on carer’s allowance are already living on a knife edge. In Scotland, the carer’s allowance supplement—£237.90 every six months—provides some additional help, but there ought to be an uplift for all unpaid carers everywhere. As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) referred to in his opening remarks, it was disgraceful that when the uplift to universal credit was introduced, it was not extended to those on legacy benefits. The Government should have uplifted the remaining benefits at that time. If £69.70 is not enough for people to live on, one would think that the Government would support people who are trying to earn and do something to increase their incomes, but no. Carers are unable to earn more than £128 per week before having their allowance cut, which means that £197.70 per week is all they can hope to earn.
A constituent of mine wrote to me only yesterday. She talked about how she has had to leave her employment because she cannot get any help to support her disabled adult daughter. She would work full time if she could, and she would choose not to seek anything from the state, but it is just not possible. As it is, what little support she receives is not enough. In her own words:
“I cannot stress enough how life and death the question is. We are stuck and there is nothing we can do to change it.”
Hon. Members have referred to the fact that unpaid carers have increased costs, often because the people for whom they care have higher costs. To make ends meet, this means going without in other ways, which was happening even before we faced the cost of living crisis that we now see.
Carers should be able to transition into work or education if they want, but at the moment there is a ban on carers receiving full-time education. This means that young carers who are learning and caring for their family are being left without financial support. With more flexible learning methods now being commonly used, there is no reason why an older person could not be doing full-time training from home while still providing care. The ban does nothing but stop carers reaching their potential in life, and it keeps them reliant on the small levels of benefits provided by the Government, who say they want to make work pay. Working not only puts vital money in the pockets of carers, but gives a source of identity and support outside that caring role.
In conclusion, being a carer is hard. Accessing the support needed to fulfil that role should not make it even harder. Providing a carer’s allowance that actually cares is essential.
New research from Carers UK reveals that the financial pressures on unpaid carers have become untenable. Just under half—45%—of unpaid carers said that they are currently unable to manage their monthly expenses and that any further increase in energy bills will negatively affect their own physical and mental health, or that of the person they care for. Many also said that they were taking difficult steps to manage their monthly expenses; 58% had cut back on heating while 14% had already fallen into arrears with their energy bills. In the months ahead, more than two in five thought that they would not be able to heat their home to a safe level, while a third were worried that they would have to use a food bank.
It is clear that urgent Government action is required. I join Carers UK in calling on the Minister, first, to increase carer’s allowance and other benefits so that they rise in line with current inflation predictions. Secondly, the Government should immediately extend the warm home discount scheme to ensure that it includes carers on the lowest incomes. Thirdly, the Government should increase the paltry earnings limit for those claiming carer’s allowance, so that it is at least equal to 16 hours of work at the national living wage, and provide a carer’s supplement to all carers with an entitlement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as carers in Scotland have been receiving since 2018.
Unpaid carers are the backbone of our families; they are our mums, dads, brothers, sisters, partners and friends. They support us in our time of need. It is time we gave them the recognition and thanks that they deserve by supporting them too.
I know that social services provide some carers and people do get carers coming in, but that is not enough. Their hours are limited. They are there for half an hour or 45 minutes to give someone tea or lunch, but what about the four or five-hour gap before the next carer visit? More importantly, the night-time visits have now effectively been stopped by local authorities. I remember caring for my elderly mother. Because of her physical, emotional and psychological situation, I could be up three times a night with her. As I have said, I was able to cope, but others cannot.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has said, everyone knows about social care and the lack of financial provision for carers. We have discussed it in Parliament hundreds of times. It has been debated again and again, but no Government have grasped the issue and done anything with it. We need drastic changes in the whole care system. There are 13.6 million carers, some of whom, as other Members have said, have had to leave their jobs or stop their education, because that is the grim reality of caring for a sick member of the family.
For me it is a privilege and an honour to be able to look after my family. I feel pleased that I can be with them, but I feel sorry for all those whose families are not around them—people who are left on their own, often languishing for hours and hours without anyone to look after them. It is those people that we need to be concerned about, as well as the carers who end up looking after them.
This has already been mentioned, but the carer’s allowance is going up by only 3.5%, and inflation is already more than 7%. We know that heating bills are going up. A lot of elderly and ill people often need extra heating, and if they are with their families, that often means the bill will be paid by their families.
Transport costs can be much higher because someone might need to be accompanied or they might need taxis to go to medical appointments. According to Carers UK, 24% of carers in receipt of carer’s allowance are using food banks to make ends meet. It also states that:
“The additional costs of caring can be compounded by carers having to reduce their working hours”,
as I said, or “leave employment” altogether.
What is the Minister and her Government doing to give support to carers at this very difficult time? What are they going to do in real terms to increase the benefits and allowances that carers get? Will they consider extending the warm home discount scheme to unpaid carers, to recognise the particularly high energy costs that carers often face to keep the person they are looking after safe and warm? Believe me, most ill people need extra heating.
We need a comprehensive plan for social care to support our ageing population and to relieve the pressures on the NHS. Many unwell people spend extra time in hospital because there is no social care support package available for them, delaying them there. The average person has a 50:50 chance of caring by the age of 50 —long before they reach retirement age. Most will not be able to do that, and they cannot use private carers. The Government know that, the medical profession know it, social services know it, local authorities know it, and we all know it. There is a big problem and a sad situation. Something needs to be done now.