Carers Action Plan 2018-20: Supporting Carers Today

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, on securing this debate, which really is timely. There has been a great deal of wisdom, expertise and understanding from contributors. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, at the Dispatch Box on this issue; she is widely acknowledged as the House’s expert on carers.

I welcome the action plan. It is an important start, but it poses as many questions as it answers. If the Minister is unable to respond to all my questions today, I will be quite happy if she writes to me and puts a copy in the Library. As someone who was involved in the Care Act from pre-legislative scrutiny to enactment, I am delighted that people are now sitting up and taking note of issues that affect carers, as without them both the NHS and the care sector would collapse under the strain. We owe them all a huge debt, yet for the large part we do not know who they are until it is getting too late to help.

I ask the Minister: who owns the plan? Six Ministers of State signed it, from nearly all the right departments—Health and Social Care, equalities, DCMS, BEIS, DWP and DfE—but not Housing, Communities and Local Government. Local authorities have responsibility in their areas to deliver the Care Act and the Children and Families Act but were not on the list. Why is that? Can we assume that these Ministers have brought their networks and stakeholders with them? Would they have been consulted as a matter of course? For example, in signing up to this, did BEIS agree to get the buy-in of organisations such as the Institute of Directors or the FSB? What I really mean by ownership is that, after one, two or five years, who will make the assessment of progress on the plan and report back to which Secretary of State and applaud success and follow up on inaction? Who will co-ordinate best practice? The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, asked whether we in your Lordships’ House will have the opportunity to quiz a Minister or ask questions about progress based on an annual report, and I sincerely hope we will. Best practice is arrived at by research. Could the Minister confirm which of the sponsoring Ministers will be responsible for that?

I understand that £500,000 is to be made available and that the fund is launched. When I first became interested in policy and politics, a friend told me that for Cornwall, where I live, a good rule of thumb is to divide the total figure to be allocated to an initiative by 100 and that is what will come to Cornwall in support of it. In this case, that gives Cornwall £5,000. I spoke to the carers’ service lead and asked him to confirm what he might be able to deliver for £5,000 in Cornwall where there are at least 64,000 known carers. As all noble Lords have said, there are far more carers unknown to the service than there are who are known. He said he thought it might provide between 50 and 100 days out for both carer and cared-for. That is good news, but £5,000 among 64,000 carers in the county of Cornwall will not go very far, and that will be factored out right across the country.

The LGA has said the Carers Action Plan should be considered an opportunity to address the needs and well-being of unknown carers. I endorse the call by the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, for a named social worker for a carer. When my mother was ill, I would have welcomed one for her. Continuity is really important. If you make a call and just get the duty social worker, you have to go through everything over and over again.

As we walk down our high streets, we pass many carers daily, aged from seven to 87, or even older. Where the individual is known to local services, the carer should be identified and offered support and advice. However, many carers go unidentified. Who is responsible for identifying those who pass under the radar? Are locally funded and voluntary carers’ networks to be responsible for their identification? Are GPs and paramedics trained to identify carers, or do we have to rely on self-identification?

What of children? The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said no one at school knew of their role, and this really chimed with me. I would like to tell noble Lords about a young man of 14—let us call him Jon. I was an inexperienced teacher and he was in my tutor group. He came up to me quietly and asked, “How do you bake a cake, Miss?” I asked what sort of cake. A birthday cake, he told me. He wanted to bake one for his younger brother. Without thinking, I asked, “Couldn’t your mother do it?” This was 1976; I do not think I would ask that now. “Nah,” he replied, “she left us ages ago”. I knew his dad was a shift worker, and it transpired that Jon was the “mum”. They had no help but did not want anyone to know in case the family was split up. I told him how to make his cake and spoke to the housemaster. He agreed that I had done the right thing in telling him and said he would chat to Jon. Nothing further happened and, to my shame, I did not follow up. I hope that Jon would now be recognised formally as a young carer and appropriately supported, and I would like the Minister to reassure me that today a teacher would know how to deal with that scenario and that someone in a senior pastoral role in a school would not quietly ignore the situation.

Older people care for their partners out of love and duty, but without support as many do not know that it is available. Likewise, older people care for their prematurely ageing children with learning disabilities. Here, I declare an interest as chair of a charity providing care to around 2,500 adults, and we see lots of exhausted elderly carers. Informal caring can be a 24/7 way of life. It is often the support provided by a carer that decides whether an older person can continue to live in their family home or has to relocate into residential care. Much more needs to be done to fully recognise the value and contribution that carers make to individuals and society as a whole.

The forthcoming social care Green Paper, now due in the autumn, must see the contribution made by carers as a central component to building a responsive and sustainable social care system. It must be bold and radical in its approach, and recognise the support that volunteers can provide, as well as paid staff. Any half-hearted attempt will only fail those providing such important care. Along with the NHS 10-year plan and budget, it must address the issue of underfunding for local government as well as for the NHS. Carers’ health is a public health issue, and the Government should rectify the omission in the PM’s speech earlier this week of extra funding for public health. Carers’ fitness is important.

Those in middle age care for children and older parents while trying to hold down a job. Their identification is less easy as they will often not wish to admit to anyone any factor that might affect their work. I welcome the employer benchmarking scheme, available next month. Who is piloting it and then, once fine-tuned, how is it to be rolled out? How will employers know about it and will it be promoted nationally? The scheme Employers for Carers is to offer umbrella membership to local councils, which is welcome, but only to 10. Are they yet identified? Who is to ensure that there is a diversity of councils—metropolitan, urban and rural? The resulting evidence base will prove invaluable in developing assistance for working carers.

I feel reassured that the state sector—the NHS, education and government bodies national and local—will put plans in place. Many are already there. Many large multinationals and corporates have done the same. The report mentions Aviva, but I also commend BT. It is easier for an employer of thousands to be flexible. It is less so if you employ hundreds. For smaller organisations, it will pose a challenge, and I hope that the Timewise carers’ hub and the Taylor review of flexible working will point the way. Earlier, I mentioned the IoD and the FSB. Have there been conversations with these important membership bodies?

It is remiss of me to have spoken for so long without mentioning the voluntary sector, which is so pivotal in the delivery of this plan and everything to do with carers. It works in partnership with local government and the NHS locally. Many in the voluntary sector are charities, but we should also include such things as informal lunch clubs and faith groupings.

I have left many issues unaddressed. Paid carer’s leave and carers for those with dementia are perhaps two of the most significant. One thing about your Lordships’ House is the certainty that we will watch developments with keen interest and keep the pressure on all departments of state involved in the carers plan and on the Ministers in this House.