Policy & Parliamentary bulletin

September2011

News

Carers Blog

The Carers’ Blog of Crossroads Care and The Princess Royal Trust for Carers (The Trust) covers current policy news and issues. Recent blogs have featured:

  • Councils: Do your duty to parent carers
  • Cameron, Clegg and Milliband agree to social care reform talks
  • Getting older – the caring doesn’t geteasier
  • Are carers in employment getting adequate support?
  • Too rich to care

Older carers at risk

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers’report ‘Always on Call, Always Concerned report on older carers’ based on a survey of 639 carers aged 60-94, found that 65% of older carers have long term health problems or a disability themselves and seven out of ten (68.8%) say that being a carer has an adverse effect on their mental health The pressures of caring also particularly affect older carers in other ways; a major concern for eight out of ten is what will happen to the person they care for in the future. And only half feel safe or confident in lifting the person they care for.

One-third had also cancelled treatment or an operation for themselves because of their caring responsibilities. The Princess Royal Trust for Carers is calling for easily accessible, comparatively low cost preventative services at local level which can improve the lives of carers. This will enable people to choose to be cared for longer at home and ultimately save public money.

Too Rich to Care

Kiev Economics Institute have carried out research measuring two types of caring: Personal needs (dressing, eating) and help/assistance (household Chores, errands). It found that for every 10% rise in salary women will spend 36% less time providing care and men will reduce their input by 18%. This actually corresponds with research in the UK which indicated a link between earning and whether carers give up work to care or not. Other key findings were:

  • People are less likely to reduce their care supply relating to personal needs than basic help (household chores etc.) with increasing income
  • There is no evidence that people who reduce informal care supply increase monetary transfers to their parents
  • Findings suggest that the amount carers reduce their informal care supply in relation to increasing income depends on the availability and easiness of substitution.

Parliament

Older Carers Debate

MPs debated the implications of the Dilnot review on social care and pressed the government on how it plans to improve care for older people.

Tracey Crouch MP argued that Paul Burstow MP cannot let reforming the funding of social care be kicked into the medium or long grass. Reform must be immediate. Jack Dromey MP urged for all Dilnot’s recommendations on national eligibility criteria to be implemented. Anne Marie Morris MP, raised concerns on HealthWatch’s ability to oversee councils’ commissioning of care.

Emily Thornberry MP (Shadow Social Care Minister research shows £1.3bn cut in social care spending over 2010-2012. 82% of councils were reducing the amount of time that people have with care workers in their home, 75% of councils were reducing the number of visits per week; 50% were trying to reduce the money spent on an hour of care. Labour will work with government to reform social care and it’s urgently needed. Government’s extra £2bn for social care is not enough.

Paul Burstow MP (Minister for Care Services) rounded off the debate saying there must be better cross-Government working on older people. Government will pursue social care reform at the earliest opportunity.

The full debate can be found at

Parliamentary Questions

Daniel Kawczynski MP: what proportion of hospitals have made provision to (a) identify and (b) support young carers in their admission and discharge procedures?

Chris Evans MP: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he plans to amend the overlapping benefit rules which prevent simultaneous payment of carer's allowance and retirement pension.

Justin Tomlinson MP: (1) what steps the Government are taking to ensure that carers are included in care plans and receive support to help them provide care (2) if he will take steps to improve the provision of training for carers.

National Government

Further consultation on social care form

The government has launched a consultation to try and engage with people who use care and support services, carers, local councils, care providers, and the voluntary sector about the priorities for improving care and support. The consultation will be used to inform a Government White Paper on social care reform and a progress report on funding reform that will be published in spring 2012.

There are six strands to the consultation, which will run until 2nd December:

  • Quality and workforce (led by Imelda Redmond)
  • Personalisation
  • Integration
  • Prevention and early intervention (led by Alex Fox)
  • Creating a more diverse and responsible care market
  • Role of the financial services sector

The Trust and Crossroads Care are concerned that funding reform and acting on the Dilnot recommendation will not be part of the White Paper and is not part of the consultation. We will be working with other charities in the Care and Support Alliance to push Government to prioritise funding reform.

PM asks DH to investigate PCT use of carers’ money

David Cameron has written to DH on 14th September, prompted by Theresa Villiers MP after our Give Carers a Break campaign launch, advising that “we must support carers” and has “asked the Department of Health to investigate hoe the money we have committed to providing breaks for carers is being allocated and used by PCTs.”

This follows DH requesting that PCTs advise whether they have published plans and budgets by 2nd September. Paul Burstow has advised that the NHS Operating Framework will give even stronger expectations of what will be expected of PCTs relating to supporting carers. This is due to be published in October.

Move towardsmonthly benefits

Government has decided that the new Universal Credit benefit will be paid monthly, rather than fortnightly as currently. Universal Credit will replace arange of existing payments such as child tax credit, housing benefit and income support.

Carerswho currently receiveCarers' Allowance and Income Support will receive Universal Credit. Such carers currently lose these benefits once earning over £100 p/w but carers who receive and the Universal Credit with the carer’s element within it will only lose some of their earnings over £100 p/w. However, carers will not be able to get both a carer and disability element within Universal Credit, and there are some who could qualify for both. Universal Credit will also be paid to the household, meaning the carer element may not be paid directly to the carer but will form part of the total payment to the household.

Health and Social Care Bill FAQs

The Department of Health of released the top ten questions about the Health and Social Care Bill identified from evidence submitted to the recommitted Bill Committee in the House of Commons.

Questions range from asking whether the NHS Commissioning Board has too much power over clinical commissioning groups to asking if HealthWatch robust enough to ensure patients voices and views are taken into account. All ten questions are responded to by the Department for Health

Local Government

Conference on Carers’ Demonstrator Sites Evaluation

A one day conference is being held, in association with the Department of Health, at the Park Plaza Hotel in central Leeds on November 16th 2011. This is free to pre-registered delegates. It will provide a forum to discuss the findings of CIRCLE's (the Centre for International Research on Care Labour and Equalities) evaluation of the National Carers' Strategy Demonstrator Sites programme and an opportunity for participants to contribute to the Department of Health's 'Caring for our Future’ consultation on social care reform (see above).

If you are interested in attending please contact Margaret Stark ()

Health and Wellbeing Boards

The Kings Fund has launched a Health and Wellbeing Board bulletin, containing the latest news, policy developments and guidance around health and wellbeing boards. These Bulletins include in depth briefings and information on issues and themes from the Health and Wellbeing Board proposals. It also lists on going consultations and how one can get involved in these.

GP Patient Survey

The GP Patientsurvey gives patients the opportunity to comment on their experience of GP practice. The survey asks about users experiences of their local GP surgery and other local NHS services, and includes questions about their general health and if they have caring responsibilities. 63% of those with a caringresponsibility said they had health problems compared to 48% of those that do not have caring responsibilities.

  • In the last 6months carers had contacted their GPs out of hours on behalf of someone else twice as many times as those with non-caring responsibilities.
  • 59% said they would like their GPs Surgery to be open at additional times, with 55% indicating they would like it to be open on Saturdays
  • Of those with health difficulties, 85% had discussed their problems with either a practices nurse or GP
  • Only 20% of those had been given written documentation of what had been discussed, although 67% indicated that they wouldn’t want any and only 14% had been told about ‘care plans’.

Compact Week 2011

Compact Week is an annual campaign held to promote the Compact and engage voluntary sector organisations, government departments, local authorities and other public sector partners working with the Compact locally or nationally. This year it will be taking place between Monday 7 and Friday 11 November.

For more information on events and how you can take part have a look at their website

Service Development

Good practice example from The Carers Hub

The Carers' Hubis a resource for all those looking to commission and develop personalised services for carers highlighting various types of services.

CLASP The Carers Centre runs a Carers Consultation Group, which meets regularly to discuss local, regional and national issues, giving carers the opportunity to influence policy and shape services. The group has been able to influence policy decision and has met with the Social Services Inspectorate as part of the Leicester City Social Services Joint Review and came up with the idea of a GP Signposting leaflet for carers which was launched in June 2001. More recently, the group organised a parliamentary hustings to quiz local MPs and candidates about carers’ issues.

Gordon Conochie, Policy & Parliamentary Officer: / 07766 410885