Spotlight: The Caregivers
We are more than the care we give. Turning the light onto the people providing the care.
Dear Readers, Thank you for being here and using some of your precious time to read Carer Mentor. Our Carer Mentor community keeps growing!
I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?
One aim the Carer Mentor Mission is to dispel the myth that caregivers1 are superhuman heroes here to do a job. We are not paid by the NHS Healtcare system. However, we interface with people and systems that see us only as conduits, translators, buffers, or administrators who facilitate care delivery to someone else. We have needs and wants, and we need advocacy to champion our rights and safety just as much as those we care for.
For once, I’d like us to put the Spotlight firmly on the caregiver—the person, the human. We are more than our acts of giving care. We have talents, passions, interests and gifts beyond those of caregiving.
October 18 Spotlight Article
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Footnotes
The most recent Census 2021 puts the estimated number of unpaid carers at 5 million in England and Wales. This, together with ONS Census data for Scotland and Northern Ireland, suggests that the number of unpaid carers across the UK is 5.7 million.
This means that around 9% of people are providing unpaid care. However, Carers UK research in 2022 estimates the number of unpaid carers could be as high as 10.6 million (Carers UK, Carers Week 2022 research report).
4.7% of the population in England and Wales are providing 20 hours or more of care a week.
Over the period 2010-2020, every year, 4.3 million people became unpaid carers – 12,000 people a day (Petrillo and Bennett, 2022).
59% of unpaid carers are women (Census 2021). Women are more likely to become carers and to provide more hours of unpaid care than men. More women than men provide high intensity care at ages when they would expect to be in paid work (Petrillo and Bennett, 2022)
One in seven people in the workplace in the UK are juggling work and care (Carers UK, Juggling Work and Care, 2019).
Between 2010-2020, people aged 46-65 were the largest age group to become unpaid carers. 41% of people who became unpaid carers were in this age group (Petrillo and Bennett, 2022).